High Strength-High Conductivity Silver Nanowire-Copper Composite Wires by Spark Plasma Sintering and Wire-Drawing for Non-Destructive Pulsed Fields

New Ag-Cu composite wires are developed for the winding of non-destructive pulsed magnets. Silver nanowires were mixed with a micrometric copper powder. Copper and 1, 5 and 10 vol. % silver-copper cylinders were prepared by spark plasma sintering. They served as starting materials for room temperature wire-drawing, enabling the preparation of conducting wires containing copper ultrafine elongated grains and silver nanowires located at the grain boundaries. The tensile strength at 293 K and 77 K for the composite wires is more than twice those for the corresponding pure copper wires. The electrical resistivity is however increased and we show that the composites containing only 1 vol. % silver offer the best compromise.