Spark-discharge plasma as a method to produce low AC loss multifilamentary (RE)Ba2Cu3O7 coated conductors

If coated conductors are to be used in large-scale ac applications such as motors and generators, energy losses must be minimised. Hysteretic ac losses can be reduced by dividing the coated conductor into filaments. In this study, a new method for producing filamentary coated conductors is presented. An electrical spark discharge was used to selectively degrade regions of superconducting tape. The robust, noncontact and scalable method was used to striate tapes into four filaments. The filamentary samples had lower ac losses than nonstriated tapes with less than a 7% reduction in current carrying capacity.