Fabrication of long REBCO coated conductors by PLD process in China

In China, the First National Key Project on CC Program started in 2009, which was focused on developing hundred meter long class CC tapes based on PLD/RABiTS processes. In this project, SJTU mainly worked on all of functional layer deposition process development. Northwest Institute for Non-ferrous Metal Research worked on RABiTS tape fabrication. At the end of the project in 2011, SJTU successfully fabricated hundred meter long CC tapes with over 300 A/cm (at 77 K, self field) on RABiTS tapes. To develop high performance CC tapes by PLD/IBAD-MgO processes, a pilot CC fabrication line was set up at Shanghai Superconductor Technology Corporation, Ltd. in 2013. High quality long REBCO coated conductors have been successfully fabricated on flexible polycrystalline metal tapes by PLD plus magnetron sputter and IBAD processes. Under optimized conditions, the IBAD-MgO layers showed pure (001) orientation and excellent in-plane texture. The in-plane phi-scan rocking curve is 4-6 degrees. AFM observation showed MgO layer had very smooth surface. The RMS is less 1 nm. On the textured MgO layer, sputter deposited single cerium oxide cap-layer showed pure (001) orientation and excellent in-plane texture of 4-6 degree. Reel-to-reel PLO process with high deposition rate was already scaled up to 100 m/h tape speed. Hundred meters long coated conductor tapes with over 500 A/cm performance have been routinely fabricated. And now, the process optimization for kilometer long coated conductor tapes is underway. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.