Effect of Yttrium substitution on superconductivity in Bi-2212 textured rods prepared by a LFZ technique

In this study, the physical and superconducting properties of the Bi2Sr2Ca1−xYxCu2O8+δ with x=0.0, 0.05, 0.075 0.1, and 0.20 textured superconducting rods prepared by a laser floating zone technique were presented. The effects of Y3+ substitution for Ca2+ have been investigated by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX), dc-magnetization, magnetic hysteresis and critical current density calculation by using the Bean׳s critical state model. The powder XRD patterns of the samples have shown the Bi-2212 phase is the major one. Along with the powder samples, the textured rod surfaces also were investigated by XRD. The grains found to be well-oriented along the longitudinal rod axis which is a typical result for superconductors prepared by laser floating zone (LFZ) method, has been observed. The best critical temperature, TC, has been found as 92.9 K for the sample with 0.15Y substitution, under DC magnetic field of 50 Oe in ZFC mode. It has also been observed that the critical current density decreases with increasing Y-substitution. Using those values, the maximum JC value has been determined as 2.37×105 A/cm2 for the undoped sample.