Method and apparatus for forming superconductor material on a tape substrate

Abstract

The present invention continuously deposits the material used to grow the superconducting layer on a moving tape substrate. The present invention preferably uses a pay-off spool (401 ) and a take-up spool (406 ) to dispense and wind up the tape substrate, respectively, at a constant speed. The invention preferably uses a series of stages to form a superconducting layer on the tape, and includes at least one reactor or reaction chamber (601c) in which to deposit one or more materials for forming the superconducting layer on the tape substrate; and One or more chambers (601a, 601b) for depositing a buffer layer between the superconductor and the metal tape substrate or between superconductor layers, and for depositing a capping layer. The present invention also preferably uses transition chambers (701) between the stages to isolate the stages from each other.

Description

[0001] Cross References to Related Applications [0002] This application is related to concurrently filed and commonly assigned U.S. Patent Application No. 10 / 206,900, entitled "SUPER CONDUCTORMATERIAL ON A TAPE SUBSTRATE," filed July 26, 2002; and concurrently filed and commonly assigned, on July 2002. U.S. Patent Application No. 10 / 206,783, filed on March 26, is entitled "METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR FORMING A THIN FILM ONA TAPE SUBSTRATE," and these two patents are hereby incorporated by reference. technical field [0003] The present invention relates generally to superconductors, and in particular to methods and apparatus for forming superconducting materials on tape substrates. Background technique [0004] Metal resistance increases because electrons propagating through the solid are dispersed by deviations from ideal translational symmetry. These deviations are produced either by impurities or by phonon lattice vibrations. Impurities make a temperature-independent con...

AI Technical Summary

Problems solved by technology

[0011] None of the methods described above for forming thin-film high-temperature superconductors can produce very long lengths of YBCO tape or strips that can be used to replace copper (or other metal) wires in electrical applications.

The first method only allows the production of small pieces of superconductor material on a wafer, e.g. batch processing

The second method can only be used to make tapes a few feet in length and uses multiple passes to produce superconducting thin films a few microns thick

Smaller sheets of ribbon produced by the second method can be spliced ​​together to form very long ribbons, but while the sheets are superconducting, the splicing technique has not yet reached the level required to achieve high-quality high-temperature superconductors

Therefore, current equipment for forming superconductors cannot form long continuous ribbons of superconducting material

Images