• Progress in Superconductivity and Cryogenics
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.14-19
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• 2020

Here we present the comparative experimental study of the stability of the superconducting state in 4 mm YBCO tapes with copper lamination against local heat disturbances at 77 K. The samples are either directly cooled by immersing a bare YBCO tape into a liquid nitrogen pool or operate in nearly-adiabatic conditions when the tape is covered by a 0.6 mm layer of Kapton insulation. Main quench characteristics, i.e. minimum quench energies (MQEs) and normal zone propagation (NZP) velocities for both samples are measured and compared. Minimum NZP currents are determined by a low ohmic resistor technique eligible for obtaining V - I curves with a negative differential resistance. The region of transport currents satisfying the stationary stability criterion is found for the different cooling conditions. Finally, we use the critical temperature margin as a universal scaling parameter to compare the MQEs obtained in this work for YBCO tapes at 77 K with those taken from literature for low-temperature superconductors in vacuum at 4.2 K, as well as for MgB2 wires cooled with a cryocooler down to 20 K.