Development of long continuous Nb3Ge tape conductors with high current density at elevated temperature and field

Author

Maley, M.P. ; Newkirk, L.R. ; Thompson, J.D. ; Valencia, F.A.

Author_Institution

Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM

Volume

17

Issue

1

fYear

1981

fDate

1/1/1981 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

533

Lastpage

540

Abstract

Superconductors based on Nb3Ge have been fabricated by the chemical vapor deposition (CVD) process in continuous lengths up to 20 m. This material exhibits a transition temperature $T_{c} > 21.0$ K and a self field critical current density $J_{c} \\geq 2.5 \\times 10^{6}$ A/cm²@ 14 K and offers the possibility of high current operation at temperatures > 14.0 K. Values of Jcmeasured in high magnetic fields exceed $8 \\times 10^{4}$ A/cm²at 18T @ 4 K. The material development program that resulted in reproducing the excellent short sample superconducting properties on long continuous lengths of tape is described. The tapes consist of 3-6 μm of Nb3Ge coated completely around 0.64-cm-wide, 25-μm-thick substrates of Cu, Ni, or Cu-clad stainless steel. More than 150 m of this tape has been fabricated for use in winding a 1-m prototype transmission cable. AC-loss measurements on short samples of the long tapes show complete shielding of the substrate and losses which are acceptably low for power transmission applications.

Keywords

Superconducting materials; Chemical vapor deposition; Critical current density; Current measurement; Density measurement; Magnetic field measurement; Magnetic materials; Niobium; Superconducting materials; Superconducting transition temperature; Superconductivity;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Magnetics, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9464

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/TMAG.1981.1061152

Filename

1061152