Overcoming the barrier to 1000 A/cm width superconducting coatings

Remarkable progress has been made in the development of YBa2Cu3O7-delta (YBCO)-based coated conductors, and the problems of continuous processing of commercially viable tape lengths are being rapidly solved by companies around the world. However, the current carried by these tapes is presently limited to about 100 A for a 1-cm-wide tape, and this is due to a rapid decrease of critical current density (J(c)) as the coating thickness is increased. We have now overcome this problem by separating relatively thin YBCO layers with very thin layers of CeO2. Using this multilayer technology, we have achieved J(c) values on metal substrates of up to 4.0 MA/cm(2) (75 K, self-field) in films as thick as 3.5 mu m, for an extrapolated current of 1400 A/cm width. (C) 2005 American Institute of Physics.