Preparation and superconductivity of MgB2/Cu tapes

MgB2/Cu tapes were fabricated by power-in-tube technique using MgB2 superconducting powder and no post-annealing treatment was performed for the prepared tapes. Both X-ray diffraction and scanning electron microscopy results indicate that there is no obvious texture of grains for the tape samples. However, compared with the bulk sample, evident shifting and broadening of diffraction peaks is observed and T-c is reduced for the tape samples. In addition, it is found that there exists a remarkable difference in flux pinning ability for tapes prepared using wires with different diameters. The difference seems to originate from the different strain and microstructure defects of MgB2 grains caused by cold working. (C) 2002 Published by Elsevier Science B.V.