Effect of sintering conditions on the radiation shielding characteristics of YBCO superconducting ceramics

The search for protective materials against harmful ionizing Radiation has been increasing dramatically in recent years. High-temperature superconductors could be a pioneer in this field. In this paper, high-temperature superconducting ceramics were fabricated by the solid-state process. The effect of synthesis factors such as sintering temperatures and preparation medium on the structure, morphology, and radiation shielding properties were studied. The X-ray diffraction results showed that YBCO ceramics had been successfully prepared. The scanning electron microscope results showed that the sintering temperatures affected the morphology aspect of the ceramics. The increase of the sintering temperature from 930 ? to 950 ? increased the mean grain size and the physical properties of the ceramics. The ceramics prepared under an oxygen flux atmosphere exhibited the highest grain size (8.53 mu m) with the ultra-lowest porosity (1.10%) and improved electrical transport property. Accordingly, the synthesis factors greatly influenced the radiation shielding performance of the prepared ceramics. The analysis was performed using Monte Carlo simulation. The linear attenuation coefficient (mu) was simulated in the energy interval between 0.244 and 2.506 MeV. The results demonstrated that the mu values reduced exponentially from 1.149 to 0.228 cm(-1) (for Y93), from 1.255 to 0.249 cm(-1) (for Y95A), and from 1.332 to 0.263 cm(-1) (for Y95O). Moreover, the fabricated ceramics' attenuation capacity affected the ceramics' sintering temperature. The Y93 sample with a sintering temperature of 930 ? has linear attenuation coefficient values between 1.149 and 0.228 cm(-1), which is considered the lowest mu values in the current study. We investigated the relationship between the porosity and the linear attenuation coefficient of the fabricated ceramics, which indicates that the linear attenuation coefficient values decrease linearly with raising the porosity ratio.