Abstract
Scanning and transmission electron microscopy have played a major part in evaluating the microstructure of the new high-temperature superconductors. Complex fabrication routes have led to a wide variety of phases in the samples produced, and the high-temperature superconductor itself has a complex microstructure on which its superconducting properties are dependent. Finally, the process of preparing specimens for examination by electron microscopy can itself lead to degradation of the superconducting properties. As a result it is desirable to establish directly that the regions studied are indeed superconducting, and to relate the superconducting properties to the local microstructure. Here we describe a convenient method for performing such an evaluation. One possible method, which relies on image contrast in a scanning electron microscope, was recently proposed1. Another, which we discuss here, involves the use of a long established, if little used, technique of electron shadow microscopy2.
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Cui-Ying, Y., Steeds, J. Direct identification of superconducting regions in an inhomogeneous specimen by electron shadow microscopy . Nature 331, 696–698 (1988). https://doi.org/10.1038/331696a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/331696a0
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