Critical Current Survival in YBCO Superconducting Layer of the Delaminated Coated Conductor

High temperature superconducting coated conductor (CC) could be practically applied in electric equipment due to its favorable mechanical properties and the critical current performance of YBCO superconducting layer. It is well known that CC could be easily delaminated because of its poor stress tolerance in thickness direction, i.e. along the c-axis of YBCO. Commonly, a stack including YBCO layer and silver stabilizer could be obtained after the delamination. It would be interesting to investigate the superconducting properties of the delaminated stack, since it could also be considered as a new type of CC with the silver stabilizer as the buffer layer, which is quite different from the oxide buffer layers in the traditional CC and might lead to new applications. In this study, a CC sample was delaminated by liquid nitrogen immersing. A Hall probe scanning system was employed to measure the critical current (IC) distribution of the original sample and the obtained stack. It was found that IC could be partially preserved after the delamination. Dense and crack-free morphologies of the delaminated surfaces were observed by scanning electron microscopy, and the potential application of the obtained stack in superconducting joint technology was discussed.