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Investigation on the superconductivity of Nb3Al by Zn doping and the effect of multi-RHQT process on the superconductivity of Nb3(Al1-xZnx)

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Abstract

Nb3(Al1–xZnx) (x = 0–0.05) wires were obtained after single rapid heating, quenching and low temperature transformation (single-RHQT) process. It is found that Zn element can make crystal plane diffraction peaks of Nb3Al phase shift to higher angle, and the interplanar crystal spacing decreases gradually, which indicates that Al atoms in Nb3Al lattice are replaced by Zn atoms with smaller diameters. And the addition of Zn can reduce ΔTc and make the superconducting phases purer, and magnetic performances such as critical temperature (Tc), critical current density (Jc), irreversible field (Birr) are better than that of the pure sample. Nb3(Al0.99Zn0.01) wire shows the highest Jc value of about 5.9 × 104 A/cm2 at 4.2 K and 8 T, and the highest Tc value of 16.8 K was found in Nb3(Al0.98Zn0.02). The influence of multiple rapid heating, quenching and low temperature transformation (multi-RHQT) process on Nb3(Al1–xZnx) wires was mainly explored, and 2 at% and 3 at% Zn samples were selected with relatively high ΔTc values for five times RHQT treatment. It is observed that the multi-RHQT process can further reduce ΔTc, and more homogeneous superconducting phases are discovered compared with that of single-RHQT process. The elements are also evenly distributed in the multi-RHQT-processed Nb3(Al1–xZnx) wires, leading to the improvement of Jc, Birr performances compared to single-RHQT samples. Multi-RHQT-processed Nb3(Al0.98Zn0.02) and Nb3(Al0.97Zn0.03) samples show the Jc values of 1.7 × 105 A/cm2 and 1.2 × 105 A/cm2 (4.2 K, 8 T), which are nearly ten times as many as that of single-RHQT samples, and Nb3(Al0.97Zn0.03) has the highest Birr values of 19.6 T (4.2 K) and 10.7 T (10 K). Flux pinning of the Nb3(Al1–xZnx) (x = 0.01–0.05) wires follows the surface pinning mechanism, where grain boundary and stacking faults are considered as pinning centers.

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Acknowledgements

This work was financially supported by the National Key Research and Development Plan of China (Grant No. 2022YFE03020002), the Natural Science Foundation of Sichuan Province (2022NSFSC0344) and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (A0920502052201-408).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Advanced Technologies of Materials, Ministry of Education, School of Electric Engineering, Southwest Jiaotong University, Chengdu, 610031, China

    Junsong Luo, Yiming Guo & Yong Zhang

  2. Key Laboratory of Magnetic Levitation Technologies and Maglev Trains, Ministry of Education, Southwest Jiaotong University, Chengdu, 610031, China

    Junsong Luo, Yiming Guo, Lian Liu, Zhou Yu, Yong Zhao & Yong Zhang

  3. College of Physics and Energy, Fujian Normal University, Fuzhou, 350117, China

    Yong Zhao

  4. Southwestern Institute of Physics, Chengdu, 610041, China

    Mei Huang, Min Xu & Xuru Duan

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  1. Junsong Luo
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  2. Yiming Guo
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  3. Lian Liu
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  4. Zhou Yu
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Contributions

JL: writing—original draft, methodology, and validation. YG: methodology and validation. LL: formal analysis and methodology. ZY: formal analysis and methodology. YZ: conceptualization and methodology. MH: resources. MX: resources. XD: resources. YZ: supervision, conceptualization, methodology, writing—review and editing.

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Correspondence to Yong Zhang.

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Luo, J., Guo, Y., Liu, L. et al. Investigation on the superconductivity of Nb3Al by Zn doping and the effect of multi-RHQT process on the superconductivity of Nb3(Al1-xZnx). Appl. Phys. A 129, 284 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00339-023-06575-4

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