Post-Synthesis Enhancement of Critical Current in Commercial Grade YBCO Coated Conductors

We present critical current measurements on a series of commercial grade YBCO coated conductors. These coated conductors contain a variety of inherent defects such as nanoparticle inclusions, twin boundaries, dislocations and self-aligned nanorods. In addition to these inherent defects, we induce new defects via low and high-energy particle irradiation in the form of point, cluster and columnar defects to probe the additive/non-additive nature of vortex pinning in these coated conductors. We show that commercial grade coated conductors can be further improved by a combination of post-synthesis induced defect landscapes and annealing schedules.