The novel device for the BSCCO superconductor critical current measurement

Obtaining repeatable critical current measurement for the high temperature superconductors (HTSs) is a challenging task, since HTSs are highly susceptible to degradation due to mechanical stress, moisture, thermal cycling and aging. This paper develops a new device for HTS critical current measurement, which uses pressing instead of welding to combine the leads with the samples. It is proved that the novel device is nondestructively device for HTS Ic measurement. Several relations, such as pressure versus contact resistance and current versus contact resistance, were investigated. As the pressure put on the samples is increasing, the contact resistance decreases rapidly at the beginning. When the pressure is over 10 N, further increasing the pressure makes little effect on the degradation of the contact resistance. The contact resistance also drops down as the metrical current increases. We also compare the Ic metrical result by using the novel device with that by using the traditional method. There is almost no difference between these two methods