Critical Current Characterization of Commercial REBCO Coated Conductors at 4.2 and 77 K

Abstract

Superconducting magnets with magnetic fields of approximately 20 T will be needed for future high-energy accelerators, such as the future circular collider at CERN and/or the Muon Collider in the United States. Such field strengths exceed the levels achievable using low-temperature superconductors, such as Nb <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">3</sub> Sn or Nb <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">3</sub> Al. Only high-temperature superconductors can currently achieve such high field strengths. However, there has been a little research published on the electrical transport properties of REBCO coated conductors in high-field low-temperature magnet applications. Thus, we have started the critical current characterization of commercially available REBCO-coated conductors in fields of up to 18 T at 4.2 K. This paper reports some of the critical current measurement results at 4.2 and 77 K for conductors from four different manufacturers: Fujikura Ltd.; SuNAM Co. Ltd.; SuperOx Japan LLC; and SuperPower Inc.