Superconductors

Abstract

Post-sintering treatments such as zone melting under thermal gradient has been conducted on sintered YBCO tape cast films. YBCO precursor powder was derived through decomposition of a mixture of nitrates of cations in a microwave oven for =4 min. The resulting powder was characterized and made into thin sheets by tape casting and then sintered at 945°C for 5 h. The sintered tapes were subjected to repeated zone refining operations at relatively high speeds of =30 mm/h. microstructure uniformly oriented grains in the a-b plane throughout