The influence of re-pelletization and heat treatment on physical, superconducting, magnetic and micro-mechanical properties of bulk BSCCO samples prepared by ammonium nitrate precipitation method

Abstract

The influence of re-pelletization and annealing time on the structural, magnetic, electrical and mechanical properties of Bi-based high temperature bulk superconductor have been investigated. All samples used in this study have been prepared by a wet technique denoted as ammonium nitrate precipitation method. The samples have been characterized by X-ray powder diffraction (XRD), Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), resistance vs. temperature (R-T), magnetic hysteresis (M-H) and hardness vs. applied load (Hv-F) measurements. Bi-2223 and Bi-2212 peaks as major phases have been observed with small amounts of impurities from XRD results. The microstructures of most samples show a plate-like granular form. The grain sizes have been investigated by SEM and XRD. The critical transition temperature (Tc) has been obtained from resistivity measurements in the range of 99–110 K, depending on the annealing time and re-pelletization. The calculated maximum critical current density (Jc), using Beans’ model, is around 12,000 A/cm2 at 10 K ∼ 0.2 T. Moreover, all prepared samples exhibit reverse indentation size effect (RISE) behavior and hardness increased with re-pelletization according to results obtained from mechanical measurements.