Powder superconducting

Yttrium—barium—copper oxide, YBa2Cu202 is a newly developed high T material which has been found to be fully superconductive at temperatures above 90 K, a temperature that can be maintained during practical operation. The foremost challenge is to be able to fabricate these materials into a flexible form to prepare wines, fibers, and bulk shapes. Ultrapure powders of yttrium—barium—copper oxide that are sinterable into single-phase superconducting... 

HTS materials, because of their ceramic nature, are quite brittle. This has introduced problems relative to the winding of superconducting magnets. One solution is to first wind the magnet with the powder-in-tube wire before the ceramic powder has been bonded and then heat treat the desired configuration to form the final product. Another solution is to form the superconductor into such fine fila-... 

Metallic appearance in massive form, black to metallic color in powdered state or in electrodeposited form hexagonal crystal system density 20.53 g/cm3 hardness (Brinell) 250 melts at 3,180°C vaporizes at 5,627°C (estimated) vapor pressure 4.6x10- torr at 2,500°C electrical resistivity 19.14 microhm -cm modulus of elasticity 67x10 psi at 20°C specific magnetic susceptibility 0.369x10 thermal neutron absorption cross section 86 barns/atom superconductivity transition temperature 1.7°K insoluble in water and hydrochloric acid soluble in dilute nitric acid and hydrogen peroxide slightly soluble in sulfuric acid. 

Immediately after the isolation of macroscopic quantities of Cgo solid [298], highly conducting [299] and superconducting [141] behaviors were verified for the K-doped compounds prepared by a vapor-solid reaction (Haddon, Hebard, et al.). Crystallographic study based on the powder X-ray diffraction profile revealed that the composition of the superconducting phase is KsCeo and the diffraction pattern can be indexed to be a face-centered cubic (fee) structure with a three-dimensional electronic pathway [300]. The lattice parameter (a = 14.24 A) is apparently expanded relative to the undoped cubic Ceo = 14.17 A). The superconductivity has been observed for many A3C60 (A alkali metal), e.g., RbsCeo (Tc = 29 K... 

The crystal chemistry of BajRC C has been systematically studied by single-crystal and powder diffraction methods with R = La, Pr,... Yb, in addition to the conventional yttrium compound [(52)(53) (54) and references therein]. With the exception of La, Pr, and Tb, the substitution of Y with rare-earth metals has little or no effect on the superconductivity, with the values of Tc ranging from 87 to 95K. Also, a relatively small change is observed in the cell constants of these compounds. The La, Pr, and Tb-substituted materials are not superconductors. A detailed structural analysis of the Pr case (52) did not show any evidence of a superstructure or the presence of other differences with the atomic configuration of the yttrium prototype. 

This is consistent with the result that Horowitz et al. have found on submicron particles obtained by a hyponitrite method they are too small to give any diamagnetic behavior. However, the heat capacity measurement shows a break at 90 K that corresponds to about 90% of superconducting phase in the powder (16). 

Nitrate solutions are also suitable for aerosol flow production of fine powders (50)(51). This technique yields small spherical particles that should be suitable for good sintering. However, because of the resulting small size of the superconducting grains, ceramics may have very poor flux expulsion properties if they are not thoroughly sintered (50). 

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