Effect of Proton Irradiation on the Critical Parameters of HTS Composites

• Published in: Physics of atomic nuclei Vol. 85; no. 12; pp. 2007 - 2014
• Main Authors: Abin, D. A., Osipov, M. A., Starikovskii, A. S., Rudnev, I. A., Stolbunov, V. S., Kulevoy, T. V., Fedin, P. A.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Moscow Pleiades Publishing 01-12-2022; Springer; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Carrying capacity; Composite materials; Critical current (superconductivity); Critical temperature; Defects; Fluence; High temperature; High temperature superconductors; Magnetic fields; Particle and Nuclear Physics; Perspective Structural Materials; Physics; Physics and Astronomy; Proton irradiation; Protons; Radiation; Superconductivity; Superconductors; Tokamak devices; Tokamaks; HTS tape; critical temperature; radiation resistance of HTS tapes; superconductivity; proton irradiation; critical current
• ISSN: 1063-7788; 1562-692X
• DOI: 10.1134/S1063778822100015

High-temperature superconducting (HTS) composite tapes of the second generation are promising materials for the development of sources of high magnetic fields, including for accelerators and tokamaks, where superconductors can be exposed to radiation for a long time. Such an impact causes defects in superconductors, the presence of which can both decrease the current-carrying capacity of the HTS due to the degradation of the superconducting layer and increase it due to the formation of additional pinning centers for magnetic field vortices. In this work, we simulated the processes of defect formation in a single tape and a stack of 10 HTS tapes upon irradiation with protons with an energy of
E
= 6–20 MeV. The results were verified experimentally by irradiating a stack of 10 HTS tapes with protons with an energy of
E
= 6 MeV and a fluence of up to 5 × 10
15
cm
–2
. For experimental studies, an industrial SuperOx HTS tape with a double-sided copper coating 20 µm thick was used. Upon irradiation with 6-MeV protons, the radiation does not pass through a single tape, which is confirmed by the fact that the critical current of the superconductor drops only in the first layer of a stack of HTS tapes, and the value of the critical temperature for this layer differs by less than 0.5% compared to the nonirradiated tape. We concluded that in real systems, HTS tapes can be easily protected from radiation with an energy of
E
= 6 MeV, but as the energy increases, a more complex protection design is required.