TEM Characterization of Grain Boundary Structure in YBCO Coated Conductors

Abstract

Studies of defects, such as grain boundaries, in high temperature superconductors (HTS) are important due to the interaction of the defects with flux-bearing vortices. The benefit of in-plane grain alignment has been documented in YBCO thin film bicrystals, in which the high critical current density (Jc) observed across small angle grain boundaries deteriorates exponentially with grain boundary angles beyond ∼ 7°. In addition to the weak coupling effect, a grain boundary may also influence the transport properties via the grain boundary dislocations (GBDs) serving as pinning centers to increase the critical current density. There have been a number of studies on grain boundary structures in YBCO. Despite many differences in structure among the different types of boundaries, it has been established that the low angle [001] tilt boundary in YBCO consists of aperiodic array of edge type GBDs with [100] type Burgers vector that accommodate the lattice mismatch, and the regions between the GBDs are channels of relatively undisturbed lattices [1].