BEND STRAIN TOLERANCE OF CRITICAL CURRENTS FOR YBA2CU3O7 FILMS DEPOSITED ON ROLLED-TEXTURED, (001)NI

Superconducting YBa2Cu3O7 /CeO2/YSZ/CeO2 multilayer structures were gr own on rolled-textured (001)Ni using pulsed- laser deposition. Critica l current densities greater than 1 MA/cm(2) were obtained for relative ly thick YBa2Cu3O7 films. The compressive and tensile bend strain tole rance of critical currents for the YBa2Cu3O7 films deposited on these rolling-assisted biaxially textured substrates was also determined. Th ese conductors retained up to 80% of their unstrained critical current s for applied compressive bend diameters as small as 1.5 cm and tensil e bend diameters of 3.2 cm. The degradation of J(c) is caused by the f ormation and propagation of transverse cracks. The results also sugges t a correlation between bend-strain tolerance for these coated conduct ors and total oxide layer thickness. (C) 1998 American Institute of Ph ysics. [S0003-6951(98)02639-4].