Thin Film Magnesium Boride Superconductor with Very High Critical Current Density and Enhanced Irreversibility Field

We report the effect of annealing on the superconductivity of MgB2 thin films as functions of the postannealing temperature in the range from 700 C to 950 C and of the postannealing time in the range from 30 min to 120 min. On annealing at 900 C for 30 min, we obtained the best-quality MgB2 films with a transition temperature of 39 K and a critical current density of ~ 10^7 A/cm^2. Using the scanning electron microscopy, we also investigated the film growth mechanism. The sam...

Superconducting MgB(2) films with Tc = 38.6 K were prepared using a precursor-deposition, ex-situ post-processing approach. Precursor films of boron, ~0.5 micrometer thick, were deposited onto Al(2)O(3) (102) substrates by e-beam evaporation; a post-anneal at 890 deg C in the presence of bulk MgB(2) and Mg metal produced highly crystalline MgB(2) films. X-ray diffraction indicated that the films exhibit some degree of c-axis alignment, but are randomly oriented in-plane. Tran...

The MgB2 coated superconducting tapes have been fabricated on textured Cu (0 0 1) and polycrystalline Hastelloy tapes using coated conductor technique, which has been developed for the second generation high temperature superconducting wires. The MgB2/Cu tapes were fabricated over a wide temperature range of 460-520 {\deg}C by using hybrid physical-chemical vapor deposition (HPCVD) technique. The tapes exhibited the critical temperatures (Tc) ranging between 36 and 38 K with ...

ctical superconducting material for power-electric products such as superconducing tapes because of its high superconducting transition temperature (Tc) of 39 K and its high critical current density (Jc) under magnetic fields. Superconducting films of MgB2 have been, however, fabricated only on planar substrates with areas of several tens of a square centimeter at the largest so far due to the technical limitation of the conventional fabrication methods. In this report, we de...

Magnetic relaxation and critical current density have been measured on a $MgB_2$ thin film in a wide region of temperature with the magnetic field up to 8 T. The irreversibility line has also been determined. It is found that the relaxation rate has a very weak temperature dependence below $1/2 T_c$ showing a clear residual relaxation rate at zero K, which cannot be easily explained as due to thermally activated flux creep. Furthermore the relaxation rate has a strong field d...

Magnetization studies have been carried out on superconducting MgB$_2$ (T$_c$=37K) in the temperature range of 2-50K and in magnetic field up to 5 Tesla. From these measurements, values of the lower critical field H$_c1$(0), upper critical field H$_c2$(0) at zero K are estimated to be ~300 Oe and ~12.5 Tesla, respectively, which yield a value of ~26 for the Ginzburg-Landau parameter, k. Magnetization hysteresis loops have been obtained at various temperatures from which the m...

We report the influence of intrinsic superconducting parameters on the vortex dynamics and the critical current densities of a MgB$_2$ thin film. The small magnetic penetration depth of \lambda = 50 nm at T=4 K is related to a clean \pi-band, and transport and magnetization data show an upper critical field similar to those reported in clean single crystals. We find a high self-field critical current density Jc, which is strongly reduced with applied magnetic field, and attri...

In this letter, we report the first successful fabrication of dense, metal-clad MgB2 superconductor wires as well as the first demonstration of high transport Jc of greater than 36,000 A/cm2 in MgB2. The fabrication technique that we devised uses only ambient pressure, yet produces very dense MgB2 with little loss of stoichiometry. Such a technique can be useful for rapid and reliable compound syntheses and characterizations for future discovery of new or improved superconduc...

Upper critical fields of four MgB2 thin films were measured up to 28 Tesla at Grenoble High Magnetic Field Laboratory. The films were grown by Pulsed Laser Deposition and showed critical temperatures ranging between 29.5 and 38.8 K and resistivities at 40 K varying from 5 to 50 mWcm. The critical fields in the perpendicular direction turned out to be in the 13-24 T range while they were estimated to be in 42-57 T the range in ab-planes. In contrast to the prediction of the BC...

We report on the preparation of dense monofilamentary MgB2/Ni and MgB2/Fe tapes with high critical current densities. In annealed MgB2/Ni tapes, we obtained transport critical current densities as high as 2.3*105 A/cm2 at 4.2 K and 1.5 T, and for MgB2/Fe tapes 104 A/cm2 at 4.2 K and 6.5 T. To the best of our knowledge, these are the highest transport jc values at 4.2 K reported for MgB2 based tapes so far. An extrapolation to zero field of the MgB2/Fe data gives a critical cu...