Magnetic and transport studies of Bi2223/Ag tapes

The technological importance of the Bi2223/Ag tapes has been widely recognised and yet their electrical transport properties, particularly in an applied magnetic field, remain inconclusively. We present analysis of magnetisation loops and transport current-voltage characteristics taken on the same sample. Using the dynamic relaxation technique and the transport data we can extend our E - J curves over 5 orders of magnitude in electric field. The resultant E - J characteristics reveal clues as to the current limitation between the grains and the vortex dissipation within the grains. In an applied magnetic field J c behaves hysteretically giving further insight as to the granularity of these samples. We offer a comparative study of tapes with differing values of J c .