Enhanced superconducting performances in nanostructured SmBCO coated conductor

We have studied the artificial pinning center (APC) techniques in Sm _1+x Ba _2-x Cu ₃ O _y (SmBCO) films deposited on single crystalline substrates. As a result, using the low temperature growth (LTG)-PLD technique, J _c of 0.28 MA/cm ² at 77 K, B = 5 T (B∥c) was obtained on 700 nm thick SmBCO films grown on 50 nm thick SmBCO-seed buffered MgO substrate. Following the successful demonstration of the growth of SmBCO films on single crystalline substrate, the LTG technique was also extended to coated conductor on metal substrates. With the objectives of applying the superconducting magnetic application that operate at liquid nitrogen temperature, we report the J _c in magnetic field and the microstructure of SmBCO coated conductor. PLD-SmBCO with a J _c of over 0.1 MA/cm ² at 5 T (B∥c, 77 K) were grown on IBAD-YSZ/CeO ₂ tape, which is higher than YBCO/IBAD. In addition, the J _c values of the SmBCO coated conductor grown with LTG technique measuring 0.23 MA/m ² for 5 T of B∥c at 77 K are comparable to that of NbTi for 5 T at 4.2 K. From the magnetic field angular dependences of J _c , the anisotropy of the SmBCO film/IBAD tape is small. This performance in SmBCO coated conductor on metal substrate is comparable to the best results of SmBCO films on MgO single crystalline substrates. We discussed about the elemental mapping of the high-J _c SmBCO coated conductor measured by TEM-EDX.