Orientation and thermal cycling effects on the critical currents of high-critical temperature superconducting composites.

Transport critical currents of short lengths of high-critical temperature superconducting composite tapes have been measured as a function of magnetic field applied parallel to and perpendicular to the tape surface. Anisotropy factors have been calculated from the results on a number of samples, differing only in their final annealing temperatures, and show great similarity for samples whose critical-current densities vary widely. The authors explain these results in terms of the different microstructures of the samples.