High Current Capacity YBa2Cu3Ox Coated Conductors

High temperature superconductors offer the potential for significantly reduced costs in electrical power generation, transmission, storage, and conversion. However, in order to realize these benefits, improvements are needed to increase current carrying capacity and reduce the cost of YBa2Cu3Ox coated tapes. The DOE has set performance and cost targets of 1000 amps/cm-width and $10/KA-meter-length, respectively, for second-generation, superconducting coated conductors. This project will develop processes to deposit modified YBa2Cu3OX thin films with significantly-improved critical current density. High volume, low cost production technology for the enhanced YBa2Cu3Ox coated conductors also will be developed. In Phase I, processes will be developed to deposit YBa2Cu3Ox thin films with a nanometer-scale array of rare-earth-doped precipitates. Interlayers of cerium oxide will be incorporated in the films. The ability of resulting structures to provide significantly improved critical currents will be demonstrated. Finally, a plan to scale up the technology to high volume, low cost production of enhanced superconducting coated conductors will be developed.Commercial Applications and Other Benefits as described by the awardee: The availability of low-cost, high-performance superconducting tapes should significantly benefit a wide range of scientific, military and commercial applications. These include compact high-field magnets; light-weight power-transmission and power-conversion devices with no electrical loss and reduced cooling requirements; compact light-weight transformers, motors, and inductors for airborne and shipborne applications; coreless transformers for ultra-quiet shipborne applications; and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and superconducting magnetic energy storage (SMES) systems with reduced size, weight, and cost