Single-Grain Bulk YBa₂Cu₃O_y Superconductor Grown in Shorter Duration by IG Process

Abstract

The top-seeded infiltration growth (IG) process is considered to be an attractive, well-established route compared to melt growth (MG) process due to its successful ability to resolve observed problems in MG process such as pores, shrinkage, and an ununiformed Y₂BaCuO₅ (Y-211) secondary phase particle dispersion in Y-123 matrix. This is among the first accounts of superconductivity where a large grain YBa₂Cu₃O_y (Y-123) was produced by IG process. Further, by utilizing homemade Y-123 and Y-211, we had prepared YBa₂Cu₃O_y samples via Y-123 + liquid (1:1) as a liquid source and had further characterized by utilizing the scanning electron microscopy (SEM), superconducting transition temperature (T_c), and critical current density (J_c) at 77 K. Here, we provide temperature dependence of magnetization measurements that indicated a sharp superconducting transition with T_c (onset) around 92 K. In addition, the critical current density was calculated on the basis of Bean’s model and resulted as 30,000 A/cm² at 77 K (self-field), H//c-axis. Trapped field experiments had lucidly indicated that single-grain nature with maximum-trapped field of 0.3 T at 77 K and 1 mm above sample surface even samples are produced shorter duration, i.e., 50 h.