Abstract
Practical applications of second generation (2G) high temperature superconductor (HTS) wires require high critical current density, Jc, at high temperatures and magnetic fields. It has been well established that Jc can be increased via nanostructural engineering of artificial pinning centers within the HTS matrix. In the present work, composite LaMnO3:MgO (LMO:MgO) cap buffer layers with varying MgO contents 5 vol% up to 75 vol% have been grown on homo-epi MgO/IBAD(MgO) substrates to enhance the performance of YBa2Cu3O7-x (YBCO) films. Results showed formation of phase separated MgO nanocolumns within the LMO matrix. The impact of these nanocolumns on the superconducting properties of YBCO films deposited on the nanostructured layer was investigated by electrical transport measurements. Such YBCO films showed better in-field performance compared to that of YBCO films on standard LMO cap films. In particular, measurements of the field-angle dependence revealed c-axis correlated pinning for YBCO films on these composite cap layers. The present results demonstrate a practical approach to obtain high performance superconducting wires.
