Magnetic Field Stability of a Small YBCO Magnet in Persistent Current Mode

It is well known that HTS (high temperature superconductor) is promising for magnet applications, but it has been almost impossible so far to apply them to magnets in persistent current mode because of poor qualities of their superconducting joints at higher current as well as their lower index values. To get rid of the non-superconducting joints from an HTS superconducting magnet, a wind-and-flip technique for demonstrating a persistent current mode operation of HTS magnet using YBCO coated conductors had been suggested. This paper presents experimental results of measured drift of a persistent current in the YBCO pancake coil which was made by using the wind-and-flip technique. The pancake coil was wound by YBCO coated conductor with a width of 12 mm, which was slit longitudinally at the center of the conductor along the conductor by a specially designed slitter. A stainless steel heater was attached on the one end of the YBCO conductor as a persistent current switch to energize the pancake coil. A temporal stability of the magnetic field was analyzed by monitoring the long-term drift of the magnetic field at 77.3 K by Hall sensors.