High intergrain critical current density in fine-grain (Ba0.6K0.4)Fe2As2 wires and bulks

Abstract

The K- and Co-doped BaFe(2)As(2) (Ba-122) superconducting compounds are potentially useful for applications because they have upper critical fields (H(c2)) of well over 50 T, H(c2) anisotropy γ < 2and thin-film critical current densities J(c) exceeding 1 MA cm(-2) (refs 1-4) at 4.2 K. However, thin-film bicrystals of Co-doped Ba-122 clearly exhibit weak link behaviour for [001] tilt misorientations of more than about 5°, suggesting that textured substrates would be needed for applications, as in the cuprates. Here we present a contrary and very much more positive result in which untextured polycrystalline (Ba(0.6)K(0.4))Fe(2)As(2) bulks and round wires with high grain boundary density have transport critical current densities well over 0.1 MA cm(-2) (self-field, 4.2 K), more than 10 times higher than that of any other round untextured ferropnictide wire and 4-5 times higher than the best textured flat wire. The enhanced grain connectivity is ascribed to their much improved phase purity and to the enhanced vortex stiffness of this low-anisotropy compound (γ~1-2) when compared with YBa(2)Cu(3)O(7-x) (γ~5).