Effect of 14.1 MeV Fusion Neutron Irradiation on YBCO Thin Films and Commercial REBCO Tapes

The design of new tokamak machines relying on the use of high temperature superconductors (HTS) is promoting the study of HTS properties at the operating conditions required by fusion applications. In particular, the interest in the damage induced by neutron irradiation on
RE
Ba
₂
Cu
₃
O
_7-δ
(
RE
BCO,
RE
= Y or lanthanide series), one of the most used family of HTS, has recently risen and several studies have been devoted to radiation hardness tests performed with ion irradiation or fission neutrons. In this work, the effect of neutron irradiation on YBCO films and commercial
RE
BCO tapes was investigated using, for the first time, neutrons produced by the D-T fusion reaction. The experiment was carried out at ENEA-Frascati Neutron Generator (FNG) where a deuteron beam is accelerated up to 300 keV and directed on a tritiated target to produce a nearly isotropic 14.1 MeV neutron field via the T(d,n)α fusion reaction. Different YBCO films deposited through metal-organic decomposition (MOD) route on single crystals (SrTiO
₃
and LaAlO
₃
) and
RE
BCO commercial tapes, grown by pulsed laser deposition, were irradiated. Samples exposed to three fluences were compared with a maximum neutron fluence of 1.2·10
¹⁴
cm
⁻²
. The properties of HTS materials were assessed before and after irradiation by means of different techniques. From these measurements, no significant effect on the considered properties was recognized indicating the robustness of films up to the explored irradiation fluences.