YTTRIUM-BARIUM-COPPER-OXIDE SUPERCONDUCTING MATERIALS

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... 

B.D. Merkle, R.N. Knisely, FA. Schmidt, and l.E. Anderson, Superconducting Yttrium Barium Copper Oxide (YBa CUjO ) Particulate Produced By Total Consumption Burner Processing, Materials Science and Engineering, V01.A124, No.l, 1990, pp.31-38. 

Something like that can go on in the new ceramic superconductors. In the yttrium-barium-copper oxide material, for example, if annealing—the heat treatment used to soften a material and make it more workable, and to relieve internal stresses and instabilities—goes on for too long, the ceramic begins to decompose if the annealing step is too short, it doesn t superconduct. 

Superconductors are materials that have the ability to conduct electricity without resistance below a critical temperature above absolute zero. The phenomenon of superconductivity was first seen in mercury at liquid helium temperatures. Great interest developed in this area in the late 1980s, when Muller and Bednorz discovered that even ceramic-like materials can exhibit superconductivity. C. W. Chu subsequently found yttrium barium copper oxide (YBCO) to be superconducting above liquid nitrogen temperatures. Indeed, various books are devoted to this subject. > In the following subsections we highlight representative force field applications that have aided the understanding of static and dynamic properties of superconductors. 

Research chemists found that they could modify the conducting properties of solids by doping them, a process commonly used to control the properties of semiconductors (see Section 3.13). In 1986, a record-high Ts of 35 K was observed, surprisingly not for a metal, but for a ceramic material (Section 14.24), a lanthanum-copper oxide doped with barium. Then early in 1987, a new record T, of 93 K was set with yttrium-barium-copper and a series of related oxides. In 1988, two more oxide series of bismuth-strontium-calcium-copper and thallium-barium-calcium-copper exhibited transition temperatures of 110 and 125 K, respectively. These temperatures can be reached by cooling the materials with liquid nitrogen, which costs only about 0.20 per liter. Suddenly, superconducting devices became economically viable. 

Electrical and Electronic Applications. Silver neodecanoate [62804-19-7] has been used in the preparation of a capacitor-end termination composition (110), lead and stannous neodecanoate have been used in circuit-board fabrication (111), and stannous neodecanoate has been used to form patterned semiconductive tin oxide films (112). The silver salt has also been used in the preparation of ceramic superconductors (113). Neodecanoate salts of barium, copper, yttrium, and europium have been used to prepare superconducting films and patterned thin-fHm superconductors. To prepare these materials, the metal salts are deposited on a substrate, then decomposed by heat to give the thin film (114—116) or by a focused beam (electron, ion, or laser) to give the patterned thin film (117,118). The resulting films exhibit superconductivity above Hquid nitrogen temperatures. 

K later they determined that the drop was a fluke, that subtle shifts in resistance in the contacts between the electrical leads and the sample, and not in the sample itself, were responsible. Sumitomo Electric Industries of Japan came in with 300° K (no confirmation]. In Michigan, researchers at Energy Conversion Devices announced that part of a synthetic material made of fluorine (a highly dangerous yellow gas), yttrium, barium, and copper oxide had superconducted at 45° to 90° F. (The part that super-conducted, it turned out, represented less than 1 percent of the material tested, and the samples were far too small to lose all resistance. It is incredibly difficult to identify the exact portion of any material that shows superconductivity and then produce a pure sample of it.) In New Delhi, at the National Physical Laboratory, scientists saw evidence of superconductivity in material heated to 80° F, but the electrical signals were misleading, an artifact of the measurement process. 

The compound consisting of yttrium, copper, and barium oxide, commonly called compound 1-2-3, was formed in 1987 by research scientists at the universities of Alabama and Houston. It had limited superconducting capabilities. It has been known for some time that conductors of electricity such as copper resist, to some extent, the flow of electrons at normal temperatures, but at temperatures near absolute zero (zero Kelvin = -273°C), this resistance to the flow of electrons in some materials is reduced or eliminated. The 1-2-3 compound proved to be superconducting at just 93°K, which is still much too cold to be used for everyday transmission of electricity at normal temperatures. Research continues to explore compounds that may achieve the goal of high-temperature superconductivity. 

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