Novel method of making High T sub c material: Liquid-Gas-Solidification processing.
01 January 1988
A novel process, liquid-gas-solidification, for making superconductor materials has been developed. This process consists of (1) forming a melt (the precursor melt) that comprises metallic components of the compound (e.g. RE cuprate oxides), to be formed, and (2) by introducing the missing element, oxygen, into the melt to form an oxide. One of potent applications of this process is the oxidation and coating of metallic alloys on substrates. Thick superconducting films (t ~ 3microns) of YbBa sub 2 Cu sub 3 O sub 7 have been grown epitaxially on various substrates. The films show an improved J sub c which attains a high value of 10 sup 5 A/cm sup 2 at T = 50K. The effects of processing parameters such as temperature of oxidation, melt composition and substrate on microstructure and properties of resultant films are presented.