Fabrication and superconducting properties of Gd–Ba–Cu–O single-grain bulk with barium cerate addition

Abstract

We investigated processing, microstructure and superconducting properties of Gd123 single grain bulk superconductors with a large amount of BaCeO3. The melt-textured bulk samples with compositions of Gd123:BaCeO3:Gd211=100:40−x:x (x=0–40) plus 20wt.% of Ag2O and 0.5wt.% of Pt were fabricated in Ar–1%O2 gas. The single grain bulk samples 25 and 33mm in diameters were obtained with the composition of x=5–40. It was observed that BaCeO3 particles of 1–2μm in diameters and Gd211 particles of 0.5–1μm in diameters were dispersed in the melt-textured samples. Magnetic trapped fields of the 25mm-sized samples with x=10–40 were around 1T at 77K and the 33mm-sized sample with x=20 was 1.4T at 77K.