A study on the microstructures and magnetic properties of the multi-seeded melt growth processed YBCO superconductors

We studied the microstructures and magnetic properties of the multi-seeded melt growth processed YBCO superconductors. The use of (he multi-seeded melt growth process can reduce the processing time remarkably compared with the single-seeded melt growth process, but the levitation forces and the trapped magnetic field value decreased as the number of seeds increased due to the formation of weakly linked grain boundaries at the grain junctions. The degradation of the trapped magnetic field was attributed to the presence of the residual liquid at the grain boundary. To minimize the degradation of the magnetic properties, various processing parameters such as seed distance and grain orientation were tested. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V, All rights reserved.