Investigation of Local Texture Correlations in Bi-2223 High Temperature Superconductor Tapes

Abstract

In this paper we report a study using fully automated EBSP orientation measurements on the texture and microstructure of fully processed Bi-2223 tapes produced by the powder-in-tube method. For the automated analysis a new unit cell describing the quasi-tetragonal Bi-2223 phase has been developed. The texture data confirm that a strong fibre texture is produced during processing, with the c-axis of the Bi2223 plates parallel to the tape normal direction. Quantitative analysis suggests that the orientation density along the fibre texture is close to random. In contrast the distribution of misorientations shows significant correlations between the orientations, and is skewed towards low misorientation angles. A more detailed investigation reveals that the structure consists of colonies of plates, with low angle misorientations within each colony. Analysis of the rotation axes shows some differences as a function of misorientation angle.