Development of High Jc Thick YBCO Films Through MOD Process with Pinning Center Enhancement

YBCO film through MOD approach is one of the most cost effective methods for long length CC fabrications. Although, this process has shown success on films below 1 micron, thicker films with performance goal of 500 A/cm have not been demonstrated even on small samples. Increasing Ic through further improving Jc is not viable because the present Jcs are comparable to that of the intragrain Jc, which is believed to be theoretical limit of YBCO superconductors. Thicker films of 1-3 microns through MOD approach with pinning center enhancement are yet to be fully developed to attain a higher Ic. High-density nano scale pinning centers is the only way to keep Jc from dramatic degradation for thick films. Thus, in Phase I, we propose to increase thickness while keeping Jc from degradation for higher Ic. Technical approach including thicker film fabrication and introducing high density nano size pinning centers for the MOD YBCO films on both IBAD and ISD templates are designed. By reaction and growth control, thicker films with high density, uniformly distributed small non-superconducting second phase as pinning centers are expected.