Cube textured nickel alloy tapes as substrates for YBa2Cu2O7-δ-coated conductors

Suitable substrates for biaxially textured high temperature superconducting YBa2Cu3O7-delta-thin films, which are necessary to carry high currents, are highly cube ({001}< 100 >) textured Ni-tapes that can be produced by heavy cold rolling and succeeding recrystallization annealing. At high temperatures which are necessary for the deposition of the YBa2Cu3O7-delta-film such tapes often lend to abnormal grain growth destroying the cube texture. It was found that this can be avoided by microalloying Ni with 0.1 at.% of different elements each leading to a texture improvement with increasing annealing temperature. YBa2-Cu3O7-delta-films deposited on these microalloyed tapes reach critical current densities up to 0.5 x 10(6) A/cm(2). Also non-magnetic Ni-alloys, namely Ni-13 at. %Cr and Ni-9 at.% V, were successfully processed to highly cube textured tapes. Tapes made of these alloys are not only an improvement because magnetic losses are avoided but also because of a three times enhanced yield strength which is due to solid solution hardening. (C) 2001 Acta Materialia Inc. Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.