Powder metallurgy for the fabrication of bi-axially textured Ni tapes for YBCO coated conductors

Bi-axially textured Ni tapes for YBCO coated conductors were fabricated by forming, sintering, cold rolling and heat treatment of Ni powder compacts. The powder metallurgy process consists of filling of fine Ni powders in a rubber mold, cold isostatical pressing in a water chamber and sintering of the powder compacts. The sintered compacts were cold-rolled and made into tapes with a thickness of 100 micron and then heat-treated at 1000 degreesC for various time periods for the development of the (2 0 0) texture. The (2 0 0) texture of Ni tape was successfully formed through the optimization of the recrystallization heat treatment condition for the cold rolled Ni tapes. The full width half maximum of the Ni tapes was 8-10degrees and the atomic force microscopy surface roughness was 3-5 nm. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.