Enhanced current flow through meandering and tilted grain boundaries in YBCO films

Abstract

Grain boundaries (GBs) have been shown to limit critical current density, Jc, in YBa2Cu3O7 (YBCO) coated conductors. Here we use transport measurements and scanning Hall probe microscopy coupled with current reconstruction to demonstrate that GB geometry, such as the in-plane meandering observed in films grown by metalorganic deposition (MOD) on rolling assisted biaxially textured substrate (RABiTS), can lead to higher GB Jc. We observe current-induced flux entry into such a coated conductor, then model its behavior by imaging films with single, straight GBs tilted at various angles to the applied current.

3 pages, 3 figures. For submission to Applied Physics Letters. Movies and higher resolution figures at http://www.stanford.edu/group/moler/rdinner/

References in corpus (3)

• Electromagnetic, atomic-structure and chemistry changes induced by Ca-doping of low-angle $YB{a}_{2}C{u}_3{O}_{7-\delta }$ grain boundaries
• Resolution of two-dimensional Currents in Superconductors from a two-dimensional magnetic field measurement by the method of regularization
• Imaging ac losses in superconducting films via scanning Hall probe microscopy

Cited by in corpus (3)

• Improved current density and magnetisation reconstruction through vector magnetic field measurements
• Suppression of vortex channeling in meandered YBa2Cu3O7-d grain boundaries
• Individual grain boundary properties and overall performance of metal-organic-deposition coated conductors