Innovative processing techniques have been developed to fabricated REBCO coated conductors for high magnetic field and AC applications. REBCO conductors have been fabricated with a high density of nanoscale defects with zirconium addition up to 25 mol% with excellent properties in magnetic fields of 2 – 30 T over a temperature range of 4.2 K to 77 K. Critical current densities exceeding 20 MA/cm^2 have been achieved at 30 K, 3 T (field perpendicular to tape) and pinning forces over 1000 GN/m^3 have been attained at 20 K. Combining these heavily-doped REBCO with thicker (2.2 µm) films, critical currents of 4000 A/12 mm have been demonstrated at 30 K, 3 T (field perpendicular to tape). Engineering current densities above 2200 A/mm^2 have been achieved at 4.2 K in 15 T field oriented perpendicular to the tape plane, which is twice and thrice respectively better than the performance levels of Nb3Sn and Bi-2212 wires at this field. For AC applications, we have developed a laser striation and selective electroplating process to fabricate fully-stabilized, 12-filament low AC loss REBCO coated conductors in lengths of 20 meters. 24-filament and 48-filament REBCO conductors have also been demonstrated in 10 m and 1 m lengths respectively. The latest progress in the development of high performance REBCO coated conductors for high field and AC applications will be presented.

This work was supported the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, Office of Naval Research and the Army Research Laboratory.

Advancements in 2G HTS conductor performance continue to drive the operating limits for a broad range of demanding applications. The design, testing and fabrication technology of 2G HTS (RE)BCO conductors is presented, highlighting the ability of 2G HTS wire to function under a wide range of operating conditions. SuperPower continues to focus on process improvement to achieve high uniformity of wire performance, long piece length and high repeatability in wire production. In particular, extensive studies on wire properties have been carried out and processing upgrades implemented to improve both the base performance of the conductor, as well as its functionality by enhancing key characteristics such as piece length, mechanical properties, uniformity of critical current and lift factor. Updated measurements on recent production material are presented and plans for future performance targets discussed.

2G HTS coated conductors using reactive co-evaporation with cyclic deposition and reaction (RCE-CDR) of HTS films onto simplified templates have been fabricated at Superconductor Technologies Inc.. RCE-CDR is a low-cost, high-yield, scalable process for deposition of HTS films. Our simplified template structure consists of (2) steps which planarize the metal foil substrate and align MgO deposition via IBAD. Our SDP process is deposited on 10 cm wide x 1 km long tape and then slit into multiple lanes of widths typically ranging from 3-12mm or greater per customer’s specification. A Multi-lane IBAD process has been developed to improve the throughput >100 meters/hour and high yield at high Ic performance. The 100m RCE-CDR is producing Conductus(tm) coated conductors carrying 730 A/cm @ 77K. Our proprietary 1km batch RCE-CDR equipment scale-up is producing kilometers of HTS coated conductors. Detailed data of Conductus wire production will be presented at the conference. Also discussed will be a copper encapsulation on the end-product completely enclosing the tape to address demanding environmental and thermal operating conditions.

SuNAM has developed coated conductor manufacturing process based on co-evaporation and has been successfully producing 2G wires with hundreds of meters of piece length. To be applied to developing electrical power devices as core materials, coated conductors (CCs) need to be fabricated with high critical current (I_C) and high uniformity along to more than 1 km-length. CCs passes through multiple manufacturing processes in the course of production and needs quality control in each process. To secure high quality wire, we developed quality control system for IBAD(Ion Beam Assisted Deposition) of MgO layer and co-evaporation of superconducting layer. For IBAD process, the system keeps the texture of buffer layer stable by observing the shape of RHEED spot and controlling Ar ion gun. In case of superconducting layer, colors reflected from surface against the fluorescent light is matched to the composition with the help of extensive database we created. By enhanced quality control, long-length GdBa₂Cu₃O_7-δ (GdBCO) coated conductors with high critical current have been successfully fabricated by the RCE-DR (Reactive Co-Evaporation Deposition and Reaction) process We also fabricated HTS magnet with our wires that generated 21 Tesla of magnetic flux density.

Fujikura has been developing and improving the pulsed laser deposition (PLD) technique with a hot-wall heating system for the deposition of REBa₂Cu₃O_y(REBCO) layer. This system enables the rigorous control of temperature during continuous depositions and realizes stable manufacturing of commercial REBCO tapes with lengths over 500 m. Typical performances of these tapes are I_c over 500 A/cm at 77K in the self-field and about 1000 A/cm at 30 K in 2T. BaMO₃(BMO, M : Zr or Hf) doping in REBCO films is well-known way to enhance in-field performance especially in PLD process and we are now attempting it in our original system. In the case of BHO doping, we obtained high I_c of 1900 A/cm at 30 K in 2 T though it is just a short sample. Reproducibility and uniformity along the length which are key issues to commercialize doped wire will be discussed.

Progeress in up-scaling of multi-beam pulsed laser deposition (PLD) is reported. 220 m long tapes were repeatedly processed using an extended drum coupler in PLD installation employed for deposition of ceria cap buffer and YBCO layers. Cr-Ni stainless steel tape preliminary coated with biaxially textured yttria-stabilized-zirconia buffer layer via alternating beam assisted deposition (ABAD) were used as a substrate.
In 2014, the up-scaling of PLD technique was performed in 3 steps. In the first step a 22 m long tape with record “in-field” critical current (500 A in 4 mm wide tape at 4.2 K, 18 T, B//c) was achieved in February 2014. The second step enabled deposition of 110-130m long tapes with less than 20 % reduction of critical current and sufficiently small local dropouts of the current. The third step resulted in up-scaling of tape processing to 230 m length. First tapes of such length were obtained already in December 2014.
Further up-scale of tape length towards 500 m and more is in progress so far.
The most important features of the PLD process is that the critical current in the coated conductors yields no reduction in the end of the tape which was exposed to a single run of translation of the rotating drum with the tape, i.e. from one to other end. Moreover, in many cases a tendency of increase of critical current was observed during deposition run. This effect is discussed in terms of self-stabilization of laser ablation. A role of long-term saturation of laser plume in presence of side flows of foreign particles is considered as an important aspect.
Degree of critical current homogeneity at low temperature (4.2 K) is demonstrated and discussed.

This work was supported in part via project EUROTAPES from the European Union's Seventh Programme for research, technological development and demonstration under grant agreement No 280432.

DI-BSCCO with high strength of more than 400MPa is going to be added in the line-up of product at last. For high field applications such as magnet or NMR, wire strength of　400MPa or more is needed. Generally BSCCO wire was said not to be tough for these applications. But recently, Sumitomo Electric Industries, Ltd. (SEI) has succeeded in a development of high strength DI-BSCCO wire named as “Type HT-NX”, which is reinforced by 30mm thick Ni-alloy. The Strength is 1.5 times as high as that of Type HT-SS with stainless steel, because Ni alloy material has a higher elastic modulus than stainless steel and Type HT-NX is made by the pre-tension technique. As of the end of March 2015, SEI produced long wires of more than 70 pieces for the new released Type HT. Ic retention was investigated after applying tensile stress of 400MPa to short samples picked up from each end of all pieces. Ic retention of all samples was more than 95% and those variation was less than 1%. These results show Type HT-NX can be produced in good robustness for mechanical properties. Other tests are also conducted and some test or measurement results of DI-BSCCO will be shown in the presentation of this conference.

Oxford Superconducting Technology (OST) has recently achieved many improvements of Nb₃Sn and Bi-2212 round wire performance for high-field magnet applications. In recent years Nb₃Sn strand made by the internal tin process has been proven as an industrial scale high field conductor, as evidenced by the successful high volume production for ITER. Strand manufactured by a flexible internal tin Nb₃Sn method may be readily customized for particular applications. The challenge for particle accelerator applications is to maintain high J_c and RRR in strands with effective filament size < 40 microns, and we will present our latest progress in this regard. We are continuing to develop RRP^® distributed barrier and single barrier strands having small effective filament diameters for fast ramping laboratory magnets, and strands with low hysteretic losses for use in low or cryogen free magnets. For magnet application where larger effective filament diameters are acceptable, RRP^® strands can reach over 1800 A/mm² at 15T, and we will show our work in increasing this value even further. We will also present summary of strand performance our latest results on RRP^® strand for cable-in-conduit applications. Bi-2212 round wire performances have been improved by optimizing initial powder, enhancing filament density, twisting, and increasing the Ag alloy portion of the sheath material. In order to meet large scale application requirements, the wire piece-length has been significantly increased by improving our processing conditions and enlarging our production billet size. The latest results of Bi-2212 wire development and properties will be presented in detail.

Hyper Tech Research will report on progress that has been made on developing magnesium diboride superconductor wires for research and commercialization efforts, with a specific emphasis on relating superconductor properties to the requirements of the application. The status of Hyper Tech Research’s current demonstration projects for fabricating MgB2 wire and coils for MRI, FCL, motors, and other applications will be presented.

While the market is approaching to the spread use of MgB2 wires, and the performances are still increasing, the manufacturing process has reached a good maturity level, and nowadays it is available in Km lengths in a stable production rate. Its realiability must be guarantee, and not only the process is under tight control after years of experience on the field, but the quality is strictly observed thanks to scheduled controls based on various investigations techniques, like in-line industrial cameras, laser calibres, eddy current defect control, microstructural analises. Various under developement and actually under production wires will be presented, together with ongoing projects based on them.