Optimization of growth parameters for fabricating single grain (Gd, Dy)BCO bulk superconductors in top-seeded infiltration growth process

Abstract

Fabrication of single grain bulk REBa2Cu3O7-δ (REBCO) superconductors with superior performance along with shape retaining is a recent topic. Mixed REBCO superconductors produced in melt growth (MG) technique had showed enhanced superconducting performance. However, this process offers many disadvantages such as macro-porosity, shrinkage in final products, inhomogeneous distribution of 211 secondary phase particles etc., which limit many practical applications. Infiltration growth (IG) process is advanced and superior to MG technique in several aspects. Recently, we fabricated (Gd, Dy)Ba2Cu3O7-δ ((Gd, Dy)BCO) bulk superconductors through systematic addition of Dy2BaCuO5 (Dy-211) content. The addition of 20 wt.% of Dy-211 in GdBCO was found to be optimum which resulted in enhanced superconducting performance. In the present work, in order to determine a suitable temperature window for fabrication of large single grain (Gd, Dy)BCO bulk superconductors, isothermal experiments were carried out at several constant temperatures in top-seeded IG process in air atmosphere. Systematic microstructural and magnetic properties were assessed and analysed. The 211 secondary phase particles are enlarged to as high as ∼ 25 µm when the sample assembly is dwelled at high temperatures and reduced to ∼ 2 µm – 4 µm in the samples dwelled at lower temperatures. Main emphasis will be given on the growth rate progress and difficulties involved in IG processing of mixed REBCO superconductors.