Recovering the performance of irradiated high temperature superconductors for use in fusion magnets

Author(s):  
Raphael Unterrainer ◽  
David X Fischer ◽  
Alena Lorenz ◽  
Michael Eisterer

Abstract The magnets confining the plasma in future fusion devices will be exposed to a significant destructive flux of fast neutrons. Particularly, in cost efficient compact reactor designs, the degradation of the superconductor becomes an issue and directly impacts the commercial viability. We report on the influence of neutron radiation on the superconducting transition temperature, Tc, and the critical current density, jc, and discuss possibilities to counteract the degradation by thermal treatments. We found that the degradation in Tc and jc are closely related to each other, likely by the expected loss of superfluid density; thus, Tc is a very useful indicator for the magnets' degradation. It increases linearly with annealing temperature and around 25 % of the decrease can be recovered by annealing at 150 °C and about 60 % at 400 °C, which would more than double the magnet’s life time. However, a loss of oxygen has to be impeded in the latter case.

2005 ◽  
Vol 108-109 ◽  
pp. 205-210 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charalamos A. Londos ◽  
G.D. Antonaras ◽  
M.S. Potsidi ◽  
Andrzej Misiuk ◽  
Valentin V. Emtsev

Cz-grown, carbon-doped silicon samples were irradiated by fast neutrons. We investigated the annealing behaviour of oxygen-related defects, by infrared spectroscopy. We studied the reaction channels leading to the formation of various VmOn defects and in particular the VOn defects formed by the accumulation of oxygen atoms and vacancies in the initially produced by the irradiation VO defects, as the annealing temperature ramps upwards. We mainly focused on bands appearing in the spectra above 450 oC. A band at 1005 cm-1 is found to be the convolution of two bands at 1004 and 1009 cm-1. The latter band has the same thermal stability with the 983 cm-1 of the VO4 defect and therefore is also attributed to this defect. The former band has the same thermal stability with three other bands at 965, 1034 and 1048 cm-1. These four bands may be attributed to VOn (n=5,6) defects, although other VmOn complexes are also potential candidates. Furthermore, we found that pre-treatments of the samples at 1000 oC, with or without the application of high hydrostatic pressure lead to an increase in the concentration of the VO2, VO3 and generally VOn defects in comparison with that of the untreated samples.


Materials ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (24) ◽  
pp. 5830
Author(s):  
Andrzej Ślebarski ◽  
Maciej M. Maśka

We investigated the effect of enhancement of superconducting transition temperature Tc by nonmagnetic atom disorder in the series of filled skutterudite-related compounds (La3M4Sn13, Ca3Rh4Sn13, Y5Rh6Sn18, Lu5Rh6Sn18; M= Co, Ru, Rh), where the atomic disorder is generated by various defects or doping. We have shown that the disorder on the coherence length scale ξ in these nonmagnetic quasiskutterudite superconductors additionally generates a non-homogeneous, high-temperature superconducting phase with Tc⋆>Tc (dilute disorder scenario), while the strong fluctuations of stoichiometry due to increasing doping can rapidly increase the superconducting transition temperature of the sample even to the value of Tc⋆∼2Tc (dense disorder leading to strong inhomogeneity). This phenomenon seems to be characteristic of high-temperature superconductors and superconducting heavy fermions, and recently have received renewed attention. We experimentally documented the stronger lattice stiffening of the inhomogeneous superconducting phase Tc⋆ in respect to the bulk Tc one and proposed a model that explains the Tc⋆>Tc behavior in the series of nonmagnetic skutterudite-related compounds.


2010 ◽  
Vol 670 ◽  
pp. 21-27 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tatiana Prikhna ◽  
Wolfgang Gawalek ◽  
Yaroslav Savchuk ◽  
Athanasios G. Mamalis ◽  
Vasiliy Tkach ◽  
...  

The critical current density, jc, of high-pressure synthesized MgB2-based balk materials correlates with the amount and distribution of higher borides (MgB12) and Mg-B-O inclusions, which in tern correlates with the synthesis temperature and presence of additions (Ti, Ta, SiC). High-pressure-synthesized materials with near MgB12 composition of matrix exhibited superconducting transition temperature, Tc, of about 37 K, rather high jc (5∙105 and 103 A/cm2 in 0 T and 3.5 T, respectively, at 20 K) and doubled matrix microhardness: 25±1.1 GPa at 4.9 N –load as compared to materials with MgB2).


2017 ◽  
Vol 114 (27) ◽  
pp. 6990-6995 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hanyu Liu ◽  
Ivan I. Naumov ◽  
Roald Hoffmann ◽  
N. W. Ashcroft ◽  
Russell J. Hemley

A systematic structure search in the La–H and Y–H systems under pressure reveals some hydrogen-rich structures with intriguing electronic properties. For example, LaH10 is found to adopt a sodalite-like face-centered cubic (fcc) structure, stable above 200 GPa, and LaH8 a C2/m space group structure. Phonon calculations indicate both are dynamically stable; electron phonon calculations coupled to Bardeen–Cooper–Schrieffer (BCS) arguments indicate they might be high-Tc superconductors. In particular, the superconducting transition temperature Tc calculated for LaH10 is 274–286 K at 210 GPa. Similar calculations for the Y–H system predict stability of the sodalite-like fcc YH10 and a Tc above room temperature, reaching 305–326 K at 250 GPa. The study suggests that dense hydrides consisting of these and related hydrogen polyhedral networks may represent new classes of potential very high-temperature superconductors.


2009 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 129-134
Author(s):  
Baghdad Science Journal

Measurements of Hall effect properties at different of annealing temperature have been made on polycrystalline Pb0.55S0.45 films were prepared at room temperature by thermal evaporation technique under high vacuum 4*10-5 torr . The thickness of the film was 2?m .The carrier concentration (n) was observed to decrease with increasing the annealing temperature. The Hall measurements showed that the charge carriers are electrons (i.e n-type conduction). From the observed dependence on the temperature, it is found that the Hall mobility (µH), drift velocity ( d) carrier life time ( ), mean free path (?) were increased with increasing annealing temperature


MRS Bulletin ◽  
1988 ◽  
Vol 13 (10) ◽  
pp. 56-61 ◽  
Author(s):  
H.J. Scheel ◽  
F. Licci

The discovery of high temperature superconductivity (HTSC) in oxide compounds has confronted materials scientists with many challenging problems. These include the preparation of ceramic samples with critical current density of about 106 A/cm2 at 77 K and sufficient mechanical strength for large-scale electrotechnical and magnetic applications and the preparation of epitaxial thin films of high structural perfection for electronic devices.The main interest in the growth of single crystals is for the study of physical phenomena, which will help achieve a theoretical understanding of HTSC. Theorists still do not agree on the fundamental mechanisms of HTSC, and there is a need for good data on relatively defect-free materials in order to test the many models. In addition, the study of the role of defects like twins, grain boundaries, and dislocations in single crystals is important for understanding such parameters as the critical current density. The study of HTSC with single crystals is also expected to be helpful for finding optimum materials for the various applications and hopefully achieving higher values of the superconducting transition temperature Tc than the current maximum of about 125 K. It seems unlikely at present that single crystals will be used in commercial devices, but this possibility cannot be ruled out as crystal size and quality improve.


2019 ◽  
Vol 116 (6) ◽  
pp. 2004-2008 ◽  
Author(s):  
Liangzi Deng ◽  
Yongping Zheng ◽  
Zheng Wu ◽  
Shuyuan Huyan ◽  
Hung-Cheng Wu ◽  
...  

By investigating the bulk superconducting state via dc magnetization measurements, we have discovered a common resurgence of the superconducting transition temperatures (Tcs) of the monolayer Bi2Sr2CuO6+δ(Bi2201) and bilayer Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+δ(Bi2212) to beyond the maximum Tcs (Tc-maxs) predicted by the universal relation between Tcand doping (p) or pressure (P) at higher pressures. The Tcof underdoped Bi2201 initially increases from 9.6 K at ambient to a peak at 23 K at 26 GPa and then drops as expected from the universal Tc-P relation. However, at pressures above 40 GPa, Tcrises rapidly without any sign of saturation up to 30 K at 51 GPa. Similarly, the Tcfor the slightly overdoped Bi2212 increases after passing a broad valley between 20 and 36 GPa and reaches 90 K without any sign of saturation at 56 GPa. We have, therefore, attributed this Tcresurgence to a possible pressure-induced electronic transition in the cuprate compounds due to a charge transfer between the Cu 3dx2−y2and the O 2pbands projected from a hybrid bonding state, leading to an increase of the density of states at the Fermi level, in agreement with our density functional theory calculations. Similar Tc-P behavior has also been reported in the trilayer Br2Sr2Ca2Cu3O10+δ(Bi2223). These observations suggest that higher Tcs than those previously reported for the layered cuprate high-temperature superconductors can be achieved by breaking away from the universal Tc-P relation through the application of higher pressures.


1991 ◽  
Vol 05 (12) ◽  
pp. 2003-2035 ◽  
Author(s):  
MANUEL D. NUÑEZ REGUEIRO ◽  
DARÍO CASTELLO

We review and analyze the data on the thermal conductivity of both ceramic and single crystal samples of high temperature superconductors. A universal pattern can be extracted and interpreted in the following way: phonons are the main heat carriers in these materials, and in the high temperature range the thermal conductivity κ is almost constant due to phonon scattering against disorder; below the superconducting transition temperature κ increases as phonon scattering against carriers condensing into the superconducting state decreases and at still lower temperatures there is a region in which a T2 law is obeyed that most probably is due to resonant phonon scattering against low energy excitations, i.e. tunneling systems similar to those found in disordered materials. The origin of the relevant disorder is discussed.


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