Engineering of Nanorods for Superior in Field Performance of 2G-HTS Conductor Utilizing Advanced MOCVD Reactor

An advanced MOCVD (A-MOCVD) reactor has been developed with an aim of addressing the issues found in most superconductor deposition techniques such as a-axis grain formation, degradation of texture in thick films and poor source-to-film conversion efficiency. A record high-lift factor of ~9 and critical current of 3346 A/12 mm at 30 K, 2.5 T, B||c have been demonstrated in films produced in a single pass in the A-MOCVD reactor. The performance results achieved are not possible in conventional MOCVD without resorting to two-pass deposition for films thickness 2 μm and up. Additionally, a precursor-to-film conversion efficiency increase by a factor of 2.5-4 has been achieved in 2-μm-thick films deposited in a single pass. We also present results on the utilization of this system toward engineering of nanorods in thick films that are highly aligned over the entire film thickness and with very small diameter (2 nm), resulting in much higher nanorod density for the same molar fraction of Zr dopant. The results on increase in efficiency as well as on rapid nanorod characterization are also presented.