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Influence of Ba 2+ consumption and intermediate dwelling during processing of YBa 2 Cu 3 O 7 nanocomposite films
Author(s) -
Rijckaert Hannes,
Hänisch Jens,
Pollefeyt Glenn,
Bäcker Michael,
Van Driessche Isabel
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
journal of the american ceramic society
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.9
H-Index - 196
eISSN - 1551-2916
pISSN - 0002-7820
DOI - 10.1111/jace.16228
Subject(s) - nucleation , materials science , nanocomposite , nanocrystal , texture (cosmology) , deposition (geology) , flux pinning , high temperature superconductivity , superconductivity , chemical engineering , analytical chemistry (journal) , nanotechnology , mineralogy , condensed matter physics , chemistry , paleontology , physics , organic chemistry , artificial intelligence , sediment , computer science , engineering , image (mathematics) , biology , chromatography
Achieving high‐critical current densities ( J c ) with small artificial pinning centers is a crucial challenge for YBa 2 Cu 3 O 7− δ (YBCO) nanocomposite thin films fabricated using chemical solution deposition methods. In this work, the YBCO texture, structure purity, and its J c properties were improved by understanding the influence of preformed ZrO 2 nanocrystals (Ba 2+ consumption) during the nucleation and growth mechanism. This comprehensive study leads to an additional intermediate dwelling step during thermal process to increase the YBCO nuclei density before the YBCO growth, resulting to a self‐field J c of 5‐6 MA/cm 2 at 77 K for undoped and ZrO 2 ‐doped YBCO films. Counter‐intuitively, the space and size distribution of the ZrO 2 nanocrystals in the YBCO matrix are independent of this intermediate dwelling step.