Inkjet printing of multifilamentary YBCO for low AC loss coated conductors

Considerable progress has been made with the development of REBCO coated conductors in recent years, and high performance conductors are available commercially. For many applications, however, the cost remains prohibitive, and AC losses discourage their selection for higher frequency applications. Chemical solution deposition (CSD) methods are attractive for low-cost, scalable preparation of buffer and superconductor layers, and in many respects inkjet printing is the method of choice, permitting non-contact deposition with minimal materials wastage and excellent control of coating thickness. Highly textured coatings of YBCO and Gd-doped CeO₂ have previously been reported on buffered metal substrates. Inkjet printing also introduces the possibility of patterning - directly depositing two and three dimensional structures without subtractive processing - offering a low-cost route to coated conductors with reduced AC losses. In this contribution, the inkjet deposition of superconducting YBCO tracks is reported on industrially relevant buffered metal substrates both by direct printing and an inverse patterning approach. In the latter approach, ceria tracks were printed reported, which are a candidate both for resistive filament spacers and buffer layers. TFA-based precursor solutions have been printed on SS/ABAD-YSZ/CeO₂ and Ni-W/LZO/CeO₂ RABiTS substrates, and the resulting multifilamentary samples characterised by microscopy and scanning Hall probe measurements. The prospects for future inkjet-printed low AC loss coated conductors are discussed, including control of interfilamentary resistivity and bridging, transposed filamentary structures and stabilisation material.