Electromagnetic properties and microstructures of in situ MgB2 wires made from three types of boron powders
Abstract
In powder-in-tube processed MgB2 wires, the choice of boron powder as a starting material crucially affects their performance. In this paper, we prepared in situ MgB2 wires from three types of boron powders in various heat-treatment conditions and investigated their electromagnetic properties and microstructures. Their critical current density, J c, varied over a wide range from sample to sample. The difference in J c is understood to be caused by the effect of changes in the electrical connectivity, K, and intrinsic residual resistivity, ρ 0. Here, K represents the effective cross-sectional area for current, and ρ 0 reflects the degree of the charge carrier scattering caused by lattice defects. It was found that the use of boron powder with a large specific surface area leads to a large degree of lattice defects in MgB2 grains and enhances ρ 0, resulting in improving J c. The boron powder produced by thermal decomposition of B2H6 has a large specific surface area. Hence, this boron powder is the most suitable as a starting material for MgB2. Meanwhile, dry pulverization of low-cost boron powder, which is largely produced by active-metal reduction of B2O3, is also effective to increase its specific surface area without introducing impurities, resulting in the enhancement of J c in the entire magnetic field region. This finding broadens the choice of boron powder and contributes to realizing superconducting applications with excellent balance between performance and cost.
- Publication:
-
Superconductor Science Technology
- Pub Date:
- October 2016
- DOI:
- 10.1088/0953-2048/29/10/105016
- Bibcode:
- 2016SuScT..29j5016K