Fast healing of deformation-induced damage in Ag/Bi-2223 tapes

Critical current, magneto-optical (MO) images and ac susceptibility of Ag/BSCCO-2223 tapes were studied at various stages of tape processing. It was found that long-range connectivity of the tape core destroyed by intermediate deformation was restored in less than 1 h of subsequent sintering. Transverse flux penetration observed in MO images of sintered tapes are supposedly weak link channels remaining at locations of unhealed or only partially healed deformation-induced cracks.