Probing the Irradiation Defects in Enhanced 2G High Temperature Superconducting Wire

In this paper, we present a detailed investigation of the atomic and chemistry structures of irradiation defects in AMSC’s second generation (2G) HTS coil wire by using aberration-corrected scanning transmission electron microscopy (AC-STEM) coupled with atomic resolution electron energy loss spectroscopy (EELS). A 1.2μm thick Dy-doped YBCO films was deposited onto Ni(5at%)W RABiTS substrate by metal organic deposition (MOD) process [6]. The ion irradiation was carried out at Brookhaven National Laboratory using the tandem Van de Graaff accelerators with 18-MeV Au⁵⁺ ions to a dose of 2×10¹¹ Au/cm² along the c-axis of YBCO film. Prior to the irradiation, the coil wire sample has a 77 K, self-field Ic of around 385 A/cm-w. In comparison, the value decreased to 320 A/cm-w after irradiation.