Addition of nanoparticle dispersions to enhance flux pinning of the YBa2Cu3O7-x superconductor

Following the discovery of type-II high-temperature superconductors in 1986 (refs 1, 2), work has proceeded to develop these materials for power applications. One of the problems, however, has been that magnetic flux is not completely expelled, but rather is contained within magnetic fluxons, whose motion prevents larger supercurrents. It is known that the critical current of these materials can be enhanced by incorporating a high density of extended defects to act as pinning centres for the fluxons. YBa2Cu3O7 (YBCO or 123) is the most promising material for such applications at higher temperatures (liquid nitrogen). Pinning is optimized when the size of the defects approaches the superconducting coherence length ( approximately 2-4 nm for YBCO at temperatures < or =77 K) and when the areal number density of defects is of the order of (H/2) x 10(11) cm(-2), where H is the applied magnetic field in tesla. Such a high density has been difficult to achieve by material-processing methods that maintain a nanosize defect, except through irradiation. Here we report a method for achieving a dispersion of approximately 8-nm-sized nanoparticles in YBCO with a high number density, which increases the critical current (at 77 K) by a factor of two to three for high magnetic fields.     

Resonance as a measure of pairing correlations in the high-Tc superconductor YBa2Cu3O6.6

One of the most striking properties of the high-transition-temperature (high-Tc) superconductors is that they are all derived from insulating antiferromagnetic parent compounds. The intimate relationship between magnetism and superconductivity in these copper oxide materials has intrigued researchers from the outset, because it does not exist in conventional superconductors. Evidence for this link comes from neutron-scattering experiments that show the unambiguous presence of short-range antiferromagnetic correlations (excitations) in the high-Tc superconductors. Even so, the role of such excitations in the pairing mechanism for superconductivity is still a subject of controversy. For YBa2Cu3O(6+x), where x controls the hole-doping level, the most prominent feature in the magnetic excitation spectrum is a sharp resonance (refs 6-11). Here we show that for underdoped YBa2Cu3O6.6, where x and Tc are below their optimal values, modest magnetic fields suppress the resonance significantly, much more so for fields approximately perpendicular to the CuO2 planes than for parallel fields. Our results indicate that the resonance measures pairing and phase coherence, suggesting that magnetism plays an important role in high-Tc superconductivity. The persistence of a field effect above Tc favours mechanisms in which the superconducting electron pairs are pre-formed in the normal state of underdoped copper oxide superconductors, awaiting transition to the superconducting state.     

NdB2Cu3O7-x/YBa2Cu3O7-y高温超导薄膜的稳定性研究

采用脉冲激光沉积方法 ,在钇稳定氧化锆 (YSZ)衬底上制备了YBa2 Cu3 O7-y高温超导薄膜和NdB2 Cu3 O7-x/YBa2 Cu3 O7-y双层高温超导薄膜。X射线衍射分析结果表明 ,NdB2 Cu3 O7-x/YBa2 Cu3 O7-y双层膜在结晶度、表面光滑平整度和稳定性方面优于YBa2 Cu3 O7-y薄膜 ;电阻温度曲线测量结果表明 ,NdB2 Cu3 O7-x/YBa2 Cu3 O7-y双层膜的转变温度为 87.6 6K ,转变宽度为 0 .34K ;YBa2 Cu3 O7-y薄膜的则分别为 86 .6 4K和 0 .95K。与YBa2 Cu3 O7-y薄膜相比 ,NdB2 Cu3 O7-x/YBa2 Cu3 O7-y双层膜稳定性更高 ,在超导电子器件领域更具有应用潜力。     

NdB2Cu3O7—x／YBa2Cu3O7—y高温超导薄膜的稳定性研究

采用脉冲激光沉积方法，在钇稳定氧化锆（YSZ）衬底上制备了YBa2Cu3O7-y高温超导薄膜和NdB2Cu3O7-x/YBa2Cu3O7-y双层高温超导薄膜。X射线衍射分析结果表明，NdB2Cu3O7-x/YBa2Cu3O7-y双层膜在结晶度、表面光滑平整度和稳定性方面优于YBa2Cu3O7-x薄膜；电阻－温度曲线测量结果表明，NdB2Cu3O7-x/YBa2Cu3O7-y双层膜的转变温度为87.66K，转变宽度为0.34K;YBa2Cu3O7-y薄膜的则分别为86.64K和0.95K。与YBa2Cu3O7-y薄膜相比，NdB2Cu3O7-x/YBa2Cu3O7-y双层膜稳定性更高，在超导电子器件领域更具有应用潜力。     

Spontaneous macroscopic magnetization at the superconducting transition temperature of YBa2Cu3O(7-delta)

A noteworthy feature of the high-temperature superconductors is the unconventional symmetry of the superconducting order parameter. Several experiments have established that the order parameter has a four-fold d(x2 - y2) symmetry under rotation of the lattice (the order parameter of conventional superconductors is, in contrast, isotropic). An intriguing and much debated possibility is that, in certain cases, an additional imaginary component might be present, having an isotropic s-wave or d(xy) symmetry. A consequence of a complex order parameter of the form d(x2 - y2) + id(xy) is that it would break both reflection (parity, P) symmetry and time-reversal (T) symmetry, a clear signature of which would be the spontaneous appearance of a macroscopic magnetization at the superconducting transition temperature. Broken T symmetry has been reported, but searches for the effects of combined P and T symmetry breaking have so far yielded null results. Here we report the observation of a weak (approximately 10(-5) gauss) magnetic field that appears spontaneously at the superconducting transition temperature of epitaxial thin films of YBa2Cu3O(7-delta). The magnetic signal originates near the edges of the samples. One interpretation for this observation is that the order parameter carries an intrinsic angular momentum, related to the breaking of P and T symmetries, but other possibilities cannot yet be excluded.     

Magnetic-field-induced charge-stripe order in the high-temperature superconductor YBa2Cu3Oy

Electronic charges introduced in copper-oxide (CuO(2)) planes generate high-transition-temperature (T(c)) superconductivity but, under special circumstances, they can also order into filaments called stripes. Whether an underlying tendency towards charge order is present in all copper oxides and whether this has any relationship with superconductivity are, however, two highly controversial issues. To uncover underlying electronic order, magnetic fields strong enough to destabilize superconductivity can be used. Such experiments, including quantum oscillations in YBa(2)Cu(3)O(y) (an extremely clean copper oxide in which charge order has not until now been observed) have suggested that superconductivity competes with spin, rather than charge, order. Here we report nuclear magnetic resonance measurements showing that high magnetic fields actually induce charge order, without spin order, in the CuO(2) planes of YBa(2)Cu(3)O(y). The observed static, unidirectional, modulation of the charge density breaks translational symmetry, thus explaining quantum oscillation results, and we argue that it is most probably the same 4a-periodic modulation as in stripe-ordered copper oxides. That it develops only when superconductivity fades away and near the same 1/8 hole doping as in La(2-x)Ba(x)CuO(4) (ref.?1) suggests that charge order, although visibly pinned by CuO chains in YBa(2)Cu(3)O(y), is an intrinsic propensity of the superconducting planes of high-T(c) copper oxides.     

Two-dimensional geometry of spin excitations in the high-transition-temperature superconductor YBa2Cu3O6+x

The fundamental building block of the copper oxide superconductors is a Cu4O4 square plaquette. The plaquettes in most of these materials are slightly distorted to form a rectangular lattice, for which an influential theory predicts that high-transition-temperature (high-T(c)) superconductivity is nucleated in 'stripes' aligned along one of the axes. This theory received strong support from experiments that indicated a one-dimensional character for the magnetic excitations in the high-T(c) material YBa2Cu3O6.6 (ref. 4). Here we report neutron scattering data on 'untwinned' YBa2Cu3O6+x crystals, in which the orientation of the rectangular lattice is maintained throughout the entire volume. Contrary to the earlier claim, we demonstrate that the geometry of the magnetic fluctuations is two-dimensional. Rigid stripe arrays therefore appear to be ruled out over a wide range of doping levels in YBa2Cu3O6+x, but the data may be consistent with liquid-crystalline stripe order. The debate about stripes has therefore been reopened.     

粉体粒度及成型压力对YBa2Cu3O7-δ超导体烧结前后致密度的影响

应用固态反应法,制备了YBaCuO超导粉体.研究了粉体粒度及成型压力对YBaCuO超导体烧结前后致密度的影响.结果表明,不同粒度YBaCuO超导粉体的压坯密度、烧结密度(即烧结前后的致密度)随压力的变化规律不同.在粉体干压成型过程中,同一粒度粉体的压坯密度随压力增大而增大;不同粒度粉体相比,粒度大的粉体压坯密度较大.在压坯烧结过程中,粒度小的粉体表面活性大,其压坯烧结密度也较大;同一粒度不同坯体的烧结密度随压坯密度的增大而增大.     

A superconductor to superfluid phase transition in liquid metallic hydrogen

Although hydrogen is the simplest of atoms, it does not form the simplest of solids or liquids. Quantum effects in these phases are considerable (a consequence of the light proton mass) and they have a demonstrable and often puzzling influence on many physical properties, including spatial order. To date, the structure of dense hydrogen remains experimentally elusive. Recent studies of the melting curve of hydrogen indicate that at high (but experimentally accessible) pressures, compressed hydrogen will adopt a liquid state, even at low temperatures. In reaching this phase, hydrogen is also projected to pass through an insulator-to-metal transition. This raises the possibility of new state of matter: a near ground-state liquid metal, and its ordered states in the quantum domain. Ordered quantum fluids are traditionally categorized as superconductors or superfluids; these respective systems feature dissipationless electrical currents or mass flow. Here we report a topological analysis of the projected phase of liquid metallic hydrogen, finding that it may represent a new type of ordered quantum fluid. Specifically, we show that liquid metallic hydrogen cannot be categorized exclusively as a superconductor or superfluid. We predict that, in the presence of a magnetic field, liquid metallic hydrogen will exhibit several phase transitions to ordered states, ranging from superconductors to superfluids.     

Phase transitions in the incoherent lattice fluctuations in YBa2Cu3O(7-delta)

The growing body of experimental evidence for the existence of complex textures of charges and spins in the high-temperature superconductors has drawn attention to the so-called 'stripe-phase' models as a possible basis for the mechanism of superconductivity in these materials. Such observations have until now been restricted to systems where the texture dynamics are slow or suppressed altogether, and do not include the important case of YBa2Cu3O(7-delta). It seems likely that the dynamic behaviour of stripes, which has been suggested to undergo several phase transitions as a function of temperature, should also be reflected in the lattice properties of the host materials, and this forms the motivation for our present experiments. Specifically, we use MeV helium ion channelling, an ultrafast real-space probe of atomic displacements (with sub-picometre resolution), to probe incoherent lattice fluctuations in YBa2Cu3O(7-delta) as a function of temperature and oxygen doping. We detect lattice fluctuations that are larger than the expected thermal vibration component, and which show anomalies characteristic of the phase transitions anticipated for a dynamic stripe phase. Comparison of our lattice results with single-particle-tunnelling and photoemission data highlights the importance of spin-charge separation phenomena in the copper oxide superconductors.     

Ca、Zn掺杂对高温超导体YBa2Cu3O7-δ晶体结构的影响

采用固相反应法成功的制备出了Y1-yCayBa2Cu3-xZnxO7-δ(y=0,x=0;y=0.1,x=0,0.05,0.1,0.2)的系列样品.利用X射线衍射(XRD)和扫描电镜(SEM)对所制备系列样品结构进行了研究.结果表明,在整个掺杂范围内样品的单相性很好.随着锌离子掺杂量的增加,样品的晶格常数和表面形貌都发生了较大的变化,这是因为掺杂使样品的电子局域化增加,从而使样品的结构发生变化.     

One-dimensional nature of the magnetic fluctuations in YBa2Cu3O6.6

There is increasing evidence that inhomogeneous distributions of charge and spin--so-called 'striped phases'--play an important role in determining the properties of the high-temperature superconductors. For example, recent neutron-scattering measurements on the YBa2Cu3O(7-x) family of materials show both spin and charge fluctuations that are consistent with the striped-phase picture. But the fluctuations associated with a striped phase are expected to be one-dimensional, whereas the magnetic fluctuations observed to date appear to display two-dimensional symmetry. We show here that this apparent two-dimensionality results from measurements on twinned crystals, and that similar measurements on substantially detwinned crystals of YBa2Cu3O6.6 reveal the one-dimensional character of the magnetic fluctuations, thus greatly strengthening the striped-phase interpretation. Moreover, our results also suggest that superconductivity originates in charge stripes that extend along the b crystal axis, where the superfluid density is found to be substantially larger than for the a direction.     

An unusual isotope effect in a high-transition-temperature superconductor

In conventional superconductors, the electron pairing that allows superconductivity is caused by exchange of virtual phonons, which are quanta of lattice vibration. For high-transition-temperature (high-T(c)) superconductors, it is far from clear that phonons are involved in the pairing at all. For example, the negligible change in T(c) of optimally doped Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+delta (Bi2212; ref. 1) upon oxygen isotope substitution (16O --> 18O leads to T(c) decreasing from 92 to 91 K) has often been taken to mean that phonons play an insignificant role in this material. Here we provide a detailed comparison of the electron dynamics of Bi2212 samples containing different oxygen isotopes, using angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy. Our data show definite and strong isotope effects. Surprisingly, the effects mainly appear in broad high-energy humps, commonly referred to as 'incoherent peaks'. As a function of temperature and electron momentum, the magnitude of the isotope effect closely correlates with the superconducting gap--that is, the pair binding energy. We suggest that these results can be explained in a dynamic spin-Peierls picture, where the singlet pairing of electrons and the electron-lattice coupling mutually enhance each other.     

Structural phase transition in nanostructured γ-Fe_2O_3

Conclusions We have found that there is an exothermal peak on the DTA curve of nanostructured γ-Fe₂O₃ sample and that this peak is not repeatable. The XRD microstructure analysis confirms for the first time that this exothermal peak corresponds to the structural phase transition from γ-Fe₂O₃ to α-Fe₂O₃. After this transition, the nanostructured Fe₂O₃ crystalline grains grow continuously with increasing temperature.     

A Bragg glass phase in the vortex lattice of a type II superconductor

Although crystals are usually quite stable, they are sensitive to a disordered environment: even an infinitesimal amount of impurities can lead to the destruction of crystalline order. The resulting state of matter has been a long-standing puzzle. Until recently it was believed to be an amorphous state in which the crystal would break into 'crystallites'. But a different theory predicts the existence of a novel phase of matter: the so-called Bragg glass, which is a glass and yet nearly as ordered as a perfect crystal. The 'lattice' of vortices that contain magnetic flux in type II superconductors provide a good system to investigate these ideas. Here we show that neutron-diffraction data of the vortex lattice provides unambiguous evidence for a weak, power-law decay of the crystalline order characteristic of a Bragg glass. The theory also predicts accurately the electrical transport properties of superconductors; it naturally explains the observed phase transitions and the dramatic jumps in the critical current associated with the melting of the Bragg glass. Moreover, the model explains experiments as diverse as X-ray scattering in disordered liquid crystals and the conductivity of electronic crystals.     

Bi1.7Pb0.3Sr2Ca2Cu3Ox超导体中热相变与纳米尺度结构块的研究

用变温X-射线衍射仪、扫描量热分析仪和热重分析仪对精心制作的Bi1.7Pb0.3Sr2Ca2Cu3Ox超导样品从室温到熔点温度进行了分析.实验发现样品在此温度范围有两个热量和重量反常.分析表明这两个反常与晶体结构中纳米尺度上两个不同的结构块--钙钛矿块和盐岩块有关,这对认识高温超导体的结构与性能关系有重要作用.     

YBa2Cu3O6+x光电导效应的研究进展

本就高温超导体YB2Cu3O6 x的光电导效应的研究现状进行了介绍，并就机理解释及未来的研究工作做了简单的评述。     

氧离子束辅助激光制备平面织构的YBCO膜

应用氧离子束辅助准分子脉冲激光沉积薄膜技术 ,先在不锈钢基底上室温下淀积出平面织构的钇稳锆(YSZ)缓冲层薄膜 ,再在YSZ/不锈钢上 750℃下制备出了平面织构和高临界电流密度YBa2 Cu3 O7-x(YBCO)薄膜 .YSZ和YBCO薄膜都为C 轴取向和平面织构的 ,YSZ( 2 0 2 )和YBCO( 1 0 3 )的X射线 (扫描衍射峰的全宽半峰值分别为 2 0°和 1 2°.YBCO薄膜的临界温度和临界电流密度分别为 91K(R =0 )和 7.2× 1 0 5A/cm2 ( 77K ,无外磁场 ) .     

Enhanced supercurrent density in polycrystalline YBa2Cu3O(7-delta) at 77 K from calcium doping of grain boundaries

With the discovery of high-temperature superconductivity, it seemed that the vision of superconducting power cables operating at the boiling point of liquid nitrogen (77 K) was close to realization. But it was soon found that the critical current density Jc of the supercurrents that can pass through these polycrystalline materials without destroying superconductivity is remarkably small. In many materials, Jc is suppressed at grain boundaries, by phenomena such as interface charging and bending of the electronic band structure. Partial replacement ('doping') of the yttrium in YBa2Cu3O(7-delta) with calcium has been used to increase grain-boundary Jc values substantially, but only at temperatures much lower than 77 K (ref. 9). Here we show that preferentially overdoping the grain boundaries, relative to the grains themselves, yields values of Jc at 77 K that far exceed previously published values. Our results indicate that grain-boundary doping is a viable approach for producing a practical, cost-effective superconducting power cable operating at liquid-nitrogen temperatures.