Determination of I-V Curves of HTS Tapes From The Frequency Dependent AC Transport Loss

Abstract

The current-voltage characteristics of superconductors are commonly determined by means of a standard 4-probe DC measurement technique. In coated conductors, however, one often encounters problems due to weak or no stabilization and in such case, when the risk of burning the tape is high, the 4-probe approach can fail. In other cases such as in HTS cable structures, besides vulnerability and high risk of damage, it may also be difficult to achieve a high critical current level with a power supply that is normally used to characterize single strands. We therefore investigated an alternative method to determine the DC I-V curve, based on measuring the AC transport loss as a function of frequency in overcritical current range. In the AC regime, both the hysteretic loss component and the joule dissipation are present for applied transport currents exceeding the critical current Ic. In this work, AC loss measurements at different frequencies are related to different electric fields in DC and a curve similar to the DC I-V is obtained. From this curve, the power index N and Ic values are estimated. AC regime operation can be more beneficial for two reasons: firstly, because very high currents can be achieved easily by using a transformer; secondly, because the effective joule heat dissipation with overcritical AC currents is much lower than that with DC of the same amplitudes. In the experiment, we used a 4 mm wide YBCO reference tape with 20 {\mu}m of Cu-stabilization. For the comparison with AC transport loss, the sample was measured with the standard 4-probe technique and remained stable even in overload condition. To support our study, numerical simulations, reproducing both transient and stationary operation conditions, were performed. A similar relation between the AC current transport loss and the I-V curves was also observed in the simulations.