Pulsed Electron-Beam Deposition of High Temperature Superconducting Films for Coated Conductor Applications

Pulsed Electron-beam Deposition (PED) is a relatively obscure but potentially a powerful technique for cost effective manufacturing of high temperature superconducting (HTS) films for Coated Conductor applications. This chapter is intended to introduce the reader to this novel deposition technique with a hope of creating sufficient interest among the coated conductor researchers, accelerating progress in this field. The PED technique is compared and contrasted with a popular and well established HTS deposition method, the Pulsed Laser Deposition (PLD). The detailed mechanism of the phenomena and all the features that contribute to the success of the PED technique are not clear at this point of time, reminiscent of the early stages of the historic trail of the evolution of PLD during the last 14 years. Several improvements are anticipated in the immediate future, both in the pulsed electron source performance and PED-based HTS process technologies to close the gap between the current research phase and the commercial scale-up stage. Rapid progress is expected, since the ‘technology road-map’ for coated conductors has already been established, with PLD as the fore-runner, identifying critical milestones that need to be realized, both from a cost and performance points of view. HTS films deposited on single crystalline substrates as well as textured RABiTS substrates have already indicated a film quality close to what is needed for practical applications. With its intrinsic cost-effectiveness, PED could very well become the deposition method of choice for high volume manufacturing of coated conductors.