Low-cost YBCO coated conductor technology

Deformation-textured non-silver substrates, and solution-based deposition o f buffer and superconductor layers offer routes to a low-cost YBCO coated-c onductor technology for high-temperature superconducting wire. Several sign ificant steps towards such a technology are reported here: a solution-based Gd2O3 Seed buffer layer was deposited by a web-coating technique over a me tre-length tape of deformation-textured nickel with excellent texture and u niformity. Also, short full-stack samples with YBCO performance up to 0.8 M A cm(-2) at 77 K were prepared at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and American Superconductor (ASC) using a CeO2/YSZ/CeO2 buffer sequence on text ured nickel and a trifluoroacetate (TFA) precursor YBCO process; in this ca se the buffers are deposited by e-beam and magnetron sputtering.