Universal degradation of high-temperature superconductors due to impurity scattering: predicting the performance loss in fusion magnets

Abstract

Predicting the change of performance of superconductors under neutron radiation is indispensable for designing compact fusion devices. The favorable enhancement of the critical current caused by flux pinning is separated from the degrading effect of increased scattering of the charge carriers to derive a degradation function from the expected change of the superfluid density (reducing to Homes law in the dirty limit) and the observed increase in flux creep. The degradation turned out to be a universal function of disorder, not depending on the particular tape nor the particle radiation: thermal and/or fast neutrons, as well as 1.2 MeV protons. The universal behavior enables the analysis of changes in flux pinning corrected by the adverse enhancement of scattering. A more reliable prediction of the performance change of coated conductors in a fusion reactor based on proxies for neutrons is anticipated.