Intrinsic thermal stability and quenching recovery of thin-film superconductors with thermal boundary resistance

Abstract

The stability behaviour of a thin-film superconductor under a localized release of thermal disturbance is investigated. Two-dimensional conjugate film/substrate conduction equation with anisotropic thermal conductivity of the film, and Joule heat are employed to investigate effects of substrate and thermal properties on the intrinsic stability and quenching recovery. To consider the thermal boundary resistance between film and substrate, an interfacial-layer model (ILM) with very low diffusivity and an acoustic mismatch model (AMM) are employed. Results show that the thermal boundary resistance influences strongly the intrinsic stability. Thermal boundary resistance increases intrinsic stability if the thermal conductivity of the substrate or the disturbance energy is large. Higher Biot numbers and thermal conductivity ratios of film to substrate in longitudinal direction influence stability favorably. We demonstrate also that operation of a film/substrate system, such as YBCO/MgO, is either intrinsically stable or irrecoverably unstable.