Low-Temperature Synthesis Routes to Intermetallic Superconductors
Over the past few years, our group has gained expertise at developing low-temperature solution-based synthetic pathways to complex nanoscale solids, with particular emphasis on nanocrystalline intermetallic compounds. Our synthetic capabilities are providing tools to reproducibly generate intermetallic nanostructures with simultaneous control over crystal structure, composition, and morphology. This DOE-funded project aims to expand these capabilities to intermetallic superconductors. This could represent an important addition to the tools that are available for the synthesis and processing of intermetallic superconductors, which traditionally utilize high-temperature, high-pressure, thin film, or gas-phase vacuum deposition methods. Our current knowledge of intermetallic superconductors suggests that significant enhancements could result from the inherent benefits of low-temperature solution synthesis, e.g. metastable phase formation, control over nanoscale morphology to facilitate size-dependent property studies, robust and inexpensive processability, low-temperature annealing and consolidation, and impurity incorporation (for doping, stoichiometry control, flux pinning, and improving the critical fields). Our focus is on understanding the superconducting properties as a function of synthetic route, crystal structure, crystallite size, and morphology, and developing the synthetic tools necessary to accomplish this. This research program can currently be divided into two classes of superconducting materials: intermetallics (transition metal/post transition metal) and metal carbides/borides. Both involve the development and exploitation of low-temperature synthesis routes followed by detailed characterization of structures and properties, with the goal of understanding how the synthetic pathways influence key superconducting properties of selected target materials. Because of the low-temperature methods used to synthesize them and the nanocrystalline morphologies of many of the products, the superconductors and their nanocrystalline precursors are potentially amenable to inexpensive and large-scale solution-based processing into wires, coatings, films, and templated or patterned structures with nanoscale and microscale features. Also, because of the new synthetic variables that play a key role in the low-temperature formation of intermetallics, the possibility exists to discover new superconductors.
- Research Organization:
- Texas A&M Research Foundation
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC)
- DOE Contract Number:
- FG02-06ER46333
- OSTI ID:
- 921652
- Report Number(s):
- DOE/F/46333- Final Report
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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