Attraction and repulsion forces in melt-textured and sintered YBCO-superconductors: a comparative study

Abstract

In this paper, we measure the attraction (suspension) and repulsion (levitation) forces produced by the interaction between a permanent magnet and different bulk superconductors. The measurements of the interaction force HTS-PM were carried out with a relatively simple technique developed by us, which is reproducible, reliable and low cost. The obtained results were analyzed with the Bean’s critical-state model assuming a uniform magnetic field applied to the superconductor. Two superconducting samples of YBa2Cu3O7-δ (YBCO) prepared by solid-state reaction method and by the melt-textured growth method (MTG) were used. Both samples presented a different hysteresis behaviour in the field cooling (FC) and zero field cooling (ZFC) regimes. Levitation and suspension phenomena were observed in the MTG sample; however, the sintered sample (S) with Oxygen deficiencies (δ > 0.15) displayed a slight levitation force but did not show a suspension force, the latter one attributed to a more efficient magnetic flux pinning. Additionally, the critical current density of both samples was determined from the maximum gap of the force (ΔF) in the FC regime. The obtained values were between 43.00 A/cm2 and 2,758 A/cm2 for the sintered and MTG samples, respectively. These values show a remarkable difference between sintered and MTG samples like that observed from magnetization measurements, which indicate that attraction and repulsion force measurements could provide a rapid and reliable characterization method of polycrystalline superconducting samples.