The peak effect in bulk Y–Ba–Cu–O superconductor withCeO2 doping by the infiltration growth method

Abstract

In this study, large single grain Y–Ba–Cu–O (YBCO) superconductors withCeO2 addition were fabricated by the infiltration and growth (IG) technique. It is noticeable that theCeO2 doped IG-YBCO sample showed a superior critical current densityJc(H, T) with a peak effect. TheJc (3 T, 65 K) of theIG-YBCO sample with CeO2 addition reached 105 A cm − 2, which was two times higher than that of theCeO2 dopedtop-seeded melt texture (TSMT)-YBCO sample. Microstructure analysis indicated that the concentration ofSm in the CeO2 doped IG-YBCO sample was 0.2 mol%. The Sm which dissolved from the SmBCO seeddiffused into the bulk to form compositional fluctuations of (Y, Sm)BCO and wascorrelated to the effective pinning in high field regions (or peak effect) to improve theJc(H, T) in high fields. In addition, the maximum trapped field value of 0.23 T and trapped field profile of theCeO2 doped sample grown by IG are larger than that of 0.13 T grown by TSMT using the samediameter of precursor pellets.