Electron Probe Microanalysis of Bi-Sr-Ca-Cu Superconductors with Transition Metal Substitutions

Abstract Electron probe microanalysis (EPMA) is being utilized to characterize the composition of superconductors in the Bi-Sr-Ca-Cu-O system (BSCCO) that are doped with minor amounts of transition metal s. Specifically, the Fe Group (Fe, Ru, Os), the Co Group (Co, Rh, Ir), the Ni Group (Ni, Pd, Pt), the Zn Group (Zn, Cd, Hg), and the other elements in the Cu Group (Ag, Au) can be used as dopants. These first long period ions in their common valence states have similar ionic radii, so only small lattice distortions are expected when other first period ions are substituted for Cu. Our research involves the systematic study of the effect of transition metal substitutions (for Cu) on the properties of the two high temperature superconductors, Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+δ (2212) and Bi2Sr2Ca2Cu3O10+δ (2223). Substitution for Cu with transition metal ions enables one to see what effect the changing d and s character of the ions have on the superconducting properties of these compounds.