The Influence of Ag and Ag(In) Alloy on Y–Ba–Cu–O Equilibrium Diagram Around the Y-123 Superconducting Phase

Abstract

We studied the chemical compatibility of Ag, Ag(In)alloy, Y₂BaCuO₅ (the so-called Y-211 green phase) and YBa₂Cu₃O_7–δ (Y-123) phase in order to check if better grain growth and alignment with minimum contamination were possible during the Y-123melt texturing. We demonstrate that the addition of silver to Y-123 always led to an enhanced texture. The typical microstructure of the composite Y-123 plus Y-211 (that is believed essential for high critical currents in these High Tc superconductors) was not disturbed by addition of silver up to 7.5 wt%, while higher concentrations of metal led to a degradation of the texture. DTA–TG analysis was used to investigate the influence of Ag and Ag(In) alloy on the Y–Ba–Cu–O equilibria around the Y-123 phase. We found a very unexpected thermal behaviour, similar to an eutectic equilibrium, when the silver concentration was increased to35 wt%. We believe that this effect was essentially due to the increasingly higher concentration of silver that could react with the secondary phases present in the melt.