Cube textured nickel alloy tapes as substrates for YBa2Cu3O7−δ-coated conductors Original Research Article

Suitable substrates for biaxially textured high temperature superconducting YBa2Cu3O7−δ-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−δ-film such tapes often tend 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. YBa2Cu3O7−δ-films deposited on these microalloyed tapes reach critical current densities up to 0.5×106 A/cm2. 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.