Research of YBCO Superconductor Coating on Austenitic Stainless Steel by Electrophoretic Deposition Method

Yttrium-based superconductors (YBCO) haven’t been widely applied. One reason is because of its high cost. In this study, we replaced the substrate and the fabrication method with lower-cost one, and found the possibility of making high-performance superconducting wires. Specifically, YBCO layer was fabricated by Electrophoretic deposition (EPD). Fabrication by this method needs calcination. The phenomenon that Fe in the substrate diffuses to YBCO layer during calcinating was confirmed. It was caused a decrease in YBCO performance. Therefore, CeO2 as an intermediate layer of substrate and YBCO was fabricated by EPD. It showed the possibility of preventing the spread of Fe. On the other hand, textured CeO2 layer was also fabricated in order to increase the characteristics of superconductor by EPD. And then it was also shown that to obtain a priority orientation is possible by controlling the current value.

Development and large volume production of extremely high current density YBa2Cu3O7 superconducting wires for fusion

The fusion power density produced in a tokamak is proportional to its magnetic field strength to the fourth power. Second-generation high temperature superconductor (2G HTS) wires demonstrate remarkable engineering current density (averaged over the full wire), JE, at very high magnetic fields, driving progress in fusion and other applications. The key challenge for HTS wires has been to offer an acceptable combination of high and consistent superconducting performance in high magnetic fields, high volume supply, and low price. Here we report a very high and reproducible JE in practical HTS wires based on a simple YBa2Cu3O7 (YBCO) superconductor formulation with Y2O3 nanoparticles, which have been delivered in just nine months to a commercial fusion customer in the largest-volume order the HTS industry has seen to date. We demonstrate a novel YBCO superconductor formulation without the c-axis correlated nano-columnar defects that are widely believed to be prerequisite for high in-field performance. The simplicity of this new formulation allows robust and scalable manufacturing, providing, for the first time, large volumes of consistently high performance wire, and the economies of scale necessary to lower HTS wire prices to a level acceptable for fusion and ultimately for the widespread commercial adoption of HTS.