Heat-treatment effects on the magnetic response of superconducting mesoscopic samples

Abstract The use of chemical methods in the synthesis of high-quality and small-size polycrystalline samples has been increased in recent years. In this work, a chemical route based on an aqueous precursor solution of metals followed by the addition of a water-soluble polymer formed by ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA) and ethylene glycol (EG) was tested to produce superconducting mesoscopic YBa2Cu3O7−δ samples. Different conditions of heat treatments and the effects of argon and oxygen atmospheres during the calcination steps were traced using X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and magnetic measurements.