How filaments can reduce AC losses in HTS coated conductors: a review

Second-generation high-temperature superconductor (HTS) tapes, known also as coated conductors, are very promising tapes for HTS applications, in virtue of their extremely high critical current density, in-field behavior, and mechanical strength. Yet, the extremely large (typically in the range 1000–10 000) width-to-thickness ratio of the superconducting material makes them prone to high power dissipation in the presence of time-varying magnetic fields perpendicular to their flat face—a condition frequently met in several applications. Since the dissipation is directly proportional to the square of the superconductor's width, an obvious way of reducing it is by striating the superconductor into narrow filaments (stripes): in that case, provided that the filaments are electromagnetically uncoupled, the losses are reduced by a factor equal to the number of filaments. In the past two decades, many researchers from groups around the world have tried to apply this idea to practical conductors using different techniques. The aim of this paper is to provide a review of such efforts, focusing on the different approaches to make filamentized conductors, on the effectiveness of the AC loss reduction, and on the applicability of those techniques to long lengths.