Abstract
Supercon, Inc. has pursued the development of Nb-Ti-Ta ternary conductors fabricated via their unique APC (artificial pinning center) route. The process has been successfully utilized in the fabrication of NbTi conductors. Pure Nb and pure Ti sheets are alternately layered to form a Nb/Ti composite monofilament. Subsequent processing includes a heating step in which a controlled amount of diffusion occurs, forming superconducting NbTi alloy at the sheet interfaces. The result is a superconducting/normal structure that provides excellent Jc (critical current density) performance when reduced to final size.
The success of the Supercon APC process for binary Nb/Ti has led to investigations of ternary APC Nb-Ti-Ta composites. Ternary materials offer the promise of enhanced Hc2 (upper critical field) performance at low temperature (~1.8K) as compared to standard binary materials. Such performance enhancement is desirable for high energy physics applications, particularly in machines such as the proposed Large Hadron Collider (LHC). The Supercon process may afford a comparatively inexpensive, convenient way to manufacture ternary conductor. We will give an overview of our development efforts in this area and our present understanding of the key process parameters.
All compositions discussed in this paper are given in weight percent.
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© 1996 Springer Science+Business Media New York
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Rudziak, M.K., Seuntjens, J.M., Wong, T., Wong, J. (1996). Application of the Supercon APC Process to Nb-Ti-Ta Ternary Conductors. In: Summers, L.T. (eds) Advances in Cryogenic Engineering Materials . Advances in Cryogenic Engineering Materials , vol 42. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-9059-7_147
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