Bend strain tolerance of critical currents for YBa2Cu3O7 films deposited on rolled-textured, (001)Ni

Superconducting YBa2Cu3O7 /CeO2/YSZ/CeO2 multilayer structures were grown on rolled-textured (001)Ni using pulsed- laser deposition. Critical current densities greater than 1 MA/cm(2) were obtained for relatively thick YBa2Cu3O7 films. The compressive and tensile bend strain tolerance of critical currents for the YBa2Cu3O7 films deposited on these rolling-assisted biaxially textured substrates was also determined. These conductors retained up to 80% of their unstrained critical currents for applied compressive bend diameters as small as 1.5 cm and tensile bend diameters of 3.2 cm. The degradation of J(c) is caused by the formation and propagation of transverse cracks. The results also suggest a correlation between bend-strain tolerance for these coated conductors and total oxide layer thickness. (C) 1998 American Institute of Physics. [S0003-6951(98)02639-4].