Thermomagnetic Stability and Current-Carrying Capacity of REBCO Tapes without Copper Coating at 4.2 K

The current-carrying capacity of second-generation commercial high-temperature superconducting REBCO tapes with a width of 12 mm without a stabilizing copper coating (high-temperature superconductor (HTSC) tapes) in liquid helium has been experimentally investigated at current injection rates up to 350 kA/s. In the experiments, tape samples in the form of rings with junctions are placed in the working volume of a superconducting magnet at 4.2 K. The current in the samples is induced by the transformer method. With an increase in the rate of current injection in the ring-shaped samples, single mechanical defects of the superconducting layer appear in the region of junctions, which causes premature transitions of the samples to the normal state. As a result, the maximum attained currents in the ring samples turned out to be up to 50% lower than the critical currents of short HTSC tape samples at 4.2 K. In conclusion, the analysis of the experimental results is given. Possible explanations for the observed effect are given. In addition, the thermomagnetic stability of two single pancake coils comprised of five isolated turns wound from REBCO tapes supplied from different manufacturers is investigated. The jumps in the magnetic flux are not detected up to an external magnetic field variation rate of 1.7 T/s.