Current sharing in double-sided REBCO tapes

Abstract Current sharing between RE–Ba–Cu–O (REBCO, RE = rare earth) tapes within a high-temperature superconducting coil or cable is important to avoid damage from uncontrolled quench of superconducting devices operating at high currents. Current sharing between REBCO tapes is found to be limited by the contact resistivity between adjacent tapes, which is about 20x higher in the REBCO-facing-substrate (face-to-back) configuration that is commonly used in devices compared to a REBCO-facing-REBCO (face-to-face) configuration. Double-sided REBCO tapes always offer face-to-face contacts between adjacent tapes, and this benefit of excellent current sharing has been validated in experiments wherein an artificial defect is introduced in one tape in a 2-ply tape stack. Additionally, current sharing between the two REBCO layers within one double-sided REBCO tape has also been investigated. Slotting of the double-sided tapes, wherein slots through the insulating buffer stack are filled with a conductive material, has been found to significantly enhance the current sharing from one REBCO layer to the opposite layer.