Investigation of high JcY Ba2Cu3O7-x coated conductors prepared by pulsed laser deposition on self-epitaxial CeO2 buffers

For Y Ba2Cu3O7-x (YBCO) coated conductors with high Jc, we have been investigating pulsed laser deposition (PLD) processing using the 'self-epitaxial' PLD-CeO2 layer on an ion beam assisted deposition (IBAD)-Gd2Zr2O7 (GZO) buffered Hastelloy tape. In this study using short samples of 10 mm in length by 10 mm in width, a high critical current density, Jc, value of 4.4 MA cm-2 was obtained for a substrate with the delta phi value of 2.4 deg. We also confirmed the relationship that the Jc value of YBCO increased exponentially with decreasing in-plane grain alignment of YBCO. Furthermore, we also succeeded in deposition of a high Jc and thick YBCO film; the thickness was 1.2 μm and the Jc value was 2.3 MA cm-2. This value corresponds to 276 A/cm-width. Based on these results, a metre long YBCO coated conductor was fabricated using a reel-to-reel system. Consequently, Jc of 1 MA cm-2 was obtained for a long coated conductor. Now, work is in progress to fabricate a longer and thicker YBCO coated conductor with high critical current, Ic