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Dear Colleagues,

Superconductors have already been applied in a number of ways, from high-magnetic-field sources to electronic devices, and they have had a substantial impact on everyday life. However, they still hold immense promise for future applications. This Special Issue will focus on the various classes of superconducting materials, such as low-temperature, high-temperature, and iron-based superconductors, together with their structural, electrical, and magnetic characterization, as well as theoretical modeling. It will also address the processing of the materials into various shapes and configurations needed for characterization and applications, as well as material design principles. Regular articles, review papers, or short communications are welcome.

The scope of this Special Issue includes, but is not limited to, the following topics:

Thin films;
Multilayers;
Tunneling spectroscopy;
Electrical measurements;
Magnetic measurements;
Structural characterization;
Devices;
Analytical and numerical models.

Dr. Angela Nigro
Dr. Paola Romano
Guest Editors

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Keywords

superconductivity
superconducting materials
transport measurements
structural analysis
magnetic measurements
thin films
tunneling spectroscopy
multilayers
theoretical models

Published Papers (1 paper)

Research

19 pages, 3356 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Excess Conductivity Analysis of an YBCO Foam Strut and Its Microstructure

by Yassine Slimani, Essia Hannachi, Anjela Koblischka-Veneva and Michael Rudolf Koblischka

Materials 2024, 17(7), 1649; https://doi.org/10.3390/ma17071649 - 03 Apr 2024

Viewed by 360

Abstract

Struts of a superconducting YBa₂Cu₃O_y (YBCO) foam prepared by the infiltration growth method on the base of commercial polyurethane foams were extracted from the bulk, and thoroughly characterized concerning the microstructure and the magnetoresistance, measured by the four-point technique. Optical microscopy, electron microscopy, electron backscatter diffraction and atomic force microscopy observations indicate a unique microstructure of the foam struts which shows a large amount of tiny Y₂BaCuO₅ (Y-211) particles (with diameters between 50 and 100 nm) being enclosed in channel-like grain boundaries between the YBCO grains and a one-of-a-kind surface of the struts covered with Ba₃Cu₅O_y-particles. The resistance data obtained at temperatures in the range 4.2 K

\leq T \leq

150 K (applied magnetic fields ranging from 0 to 7 T) were analyzed in the framework of the fluctuation-induced conductivity (FIC) approach using the models of Aslamazov–Larkin (AL) and Lawrence–Doniach (LD). The resulting FIC curves reveal the presence of five distinct fluctuation regimes, namely, the short-wave (SWF), one-dimensional (1D), two-dimensional (2D), three-dimensional (3D), and critical (CR) fluctuation domains. The analysis of the FIC data enable the coherence length in the direction of the c-axis at zero-temperature (

ξ_{c} (0)

), the irreversibility field (

B_{irr}

), the upper critical magnetic field (

B_{c 2}

), the critical current density at

T =

0 K (

J_{c} (0)

) and several other parameters describing the the material’s superconducting properties to be determined. The present data reveal that the minuscule Y-211 particles found along the YBCO grain boundaries alter the excess conductivity and the fluctuation behavior as compared to conventional YBCO samples, leading to a quite high value for

J_{c} (0)

for a sample with a non-optimized pinning landscape. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Physics and Application of Superconductivity (2nd Edition))

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