AC Magnetization Loss and Transverse Resistivity of Striated YBCO Coated Conductors

It is well known that the separation of thin (RE)BCO superconducting films into electrically isolated stripes (striation process) leads to significant reduction of the magnetization losses. However, in practice, achieving the theoretically predicted loss reduction is quite complicated, due to imperfect separation of the stripes: techniques used for striation leave resistive bridges between the stripes, and coupling currents are free to flow. Very little is known about the precise paths of the coupling currents, other than the fact that the transverse resistivity may play a major role. In this paper, we investigate the magnetization ac loss and the transverse resistivity profile on samples with different numbers of filaments and with different thicknesses of the stabilization layer. The reduction of stabilization layer thickness leads to better control of the laser grooves and substantially suppresses coupling loss. The total loss in those tapes was reduced significantly and is very close to the theoretical expectation.