The effect of B2O3 flux on growth NLBCO superconductor by solid state reaction and wet-mixing methods

Abstract

The synthesis of B2O3 flux substituted NLBCO superconductor NdBa1.75La0.25Cu3O7-∂ has been done using solid state reaction and wet-mixing methods in order to obtain homogeneous crystals and single phase. From DTA/TGA characteritations showed the synthesis process by wet-mixing requires a lower temperature than the solid state reaction in growing the superconductor NdBa1.75La0.25Cu3O7-∂. Therefore, in this research NdBa1.75La0.25Cu3O7-∂ sample calcinated at 650°C for wet-mixing method and 820°C for solid state reaction methods. The all samples was sintered at 950°C for ten hours. Crystallinity of the sample was confirmed using X-ray techniques and generally obtained sharp peaks that indicates the sample already well crystallized. Search match analyses for diffraction data gave weight fractions of impurity phase of the solid state reaction method higher than wet-mixing method. In this research showed decreasing the price of the lattice parameter about 1% with the addition of B2O3 flux for the both synthesis process and 2% of wet mixing process for all samples. Characterization using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) showed the distribution of crystal zise for wet-mixing method more homogeneous than solid state reaction method, with he grain size of samples is around 150–250 nm. The results of vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM) showed the paramagnetic properties for all samples.