Study on the properties of Sn-added YBCO prepared by the powder melting process

Abstract

Magnetization and magnetic relaxations have been measured for the YBa2Cu2.985Sn0.015Oy and YBa2Cu3Oy superconductors, which were prepared by the powder melting process method. It is found that the Sn-added sample exhibits much higher Jc value and lower flux creep rate than pure YBCO. The results indicate that the melting temperature can be reduced and the pinning potential can be enhanced by substituting Sn for Cu. The Jc value estimated by Bean’s model drops with the magnetic field according to a power law. The dependence of Jc on the reduced temperature and the flux pinning force density behavior is discussed. The dependence on temperature of the maximum demagnetization field Hp and the remanent magnetization Mrem is studied. Finally, we also investigate the microstructure characteristic.