Critical Behavior of the 124 Superconductor YBa sub 2 Cu sub 4 O sub 8

The bulk 124 superconductor YBa sub 2 Cu sub 4 O sub 8 is of technological interest because of the stability in oxygen content desirable of composite wire fabrication and the possibility of fine-scale decomposition for flux-pinning enhancement. In this paper we report the critical current behavior of the sintered 124 compound which was synthesized by a simple processing method that does not require high oxygen pressure.