Investigation of the local superconducting properties at grain boundaries in high-Tc superconductors
- Oak Ridge National Lab., TN (United States). Solid State Div.
- Univ. of Illinois, Chicago, IL (United States). Dept. of Physics
Developing an atomic scale study of the structure-property relationships of grain boundaries in high-{Tc} superconductors is essential to understand their current dissipation mechanism and for incorporating these materials into viable devices. Thin YBa{sub 2}Cu{sub 3}O{sub 7{minus}{delta}} films have been deposited by pulsed laser deposition (PLD) on SrTiO{sub 3} symmetric bicrystals. Transport measurements in a magnetic field have been conducted across the grain boundaries through a wide bridge. The data obtained are consistent with microstructural observation in a VG Microscopes HB603 U and a VG HB501 UX dedicated STEM. Of particular interest in the study of high-{Tc} materials is the use of EELS, which can highlight the presence of non-superconducting regions through interpretation of the onset positions and fine-structure (ELNES) of characteristic core-edge features. This preliminary investigation has shown that the study of the grain boundary electronic microstructure in parallel with transport properties study should lead to a better understanding of the transport properties of the superconducting materials. In particular, it has been shown that transport measurements are consistent with a model where the grain boundaries are composed of weak links separated by a very small fraction of much strong links although more boundaries need to be studied to draw definitive conclusions and determine the real nature of these strong links.
- Research Organization:
- Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Energy Research, Washington, DC (United States)
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC05-96OR22464
- OSTI ID:
- 650390
- Report Number(s):
- ORNL/CP-96835; CONF-980713-; ON: DE98004939; TRN: 98:010215
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: Microscopy and microanalysis 1998, Atlanta, GA (United States), 12-16 Jul 1998; Other Information: PBD: Feb 1998
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Similar Records
Investigating the Atomic Scale Superconducting Properties of Grain Boundaries in High-T(Sub c) Superconductors
Correlation of transport properties with grain boundary atomic structure in high-{Tc} superconducting films and tapes