Nickel-refractory metal substrate tapes with high cube texture stability

The effect of different impurity levels in nickel on the quality of the pri mary recrystallization cube texture after intense cold rolling was investig ated. Texture sharpness and thermal stability in the 99.9 at% nickel tapes could be improved by micro-alloying with molybdenum and tungsten as well as with niobium and tantalum. Furthermore, micro-alloying reduced the suscept ibility of the substrate materials against grain boundary grooving at proce ssing temperatures in the range of about 800 degreesC. Highly alloyed nicke l with 5 at% tungsten was not susceptible to thermal etching effects indepe ndent of the processing route, i.e. melting or powder metallurgy. Cube text ures were obtained for different nickel-refractory metal alloys with charac teristic in-plane orientations of FWHM: 4-8 degrees. The performance of this group of substrate materials for coating with ceram ic buffer and superconductor layers could be proven by the achieved maximum critical current density of 1.2 MA cm(-2) temperature and zero magnetic fi eld.