Dept. of Applied Physics, Tokyo Univ. of Agricul. and Technol., Koganei, Tokyo 184-8588, Japan1
Institute for Materials Research, Tohoku University, Sendai, Miyagi 980-8577, Japan2
Dept. of Advanced Materials Science, Kyushu University, Kasuga, Fukuoka 816-8580, Japan3
The Ultramicroscopy Research Center, Kyushu University, 744 Motooka, Nishi, Fukuoka 819-0395, Japan4
JST-CREST, Kawaguchi, Saitama 332-0012, Japan5
122 phase iron-based superconductors [1] which have modestly high Tc (~ 38 K), very high Hc2 (~ 100 T), small electromagnetic anisotropy (γ ~ 1-2) [2], and large critical grain boundary angle (θc ~ 9˚) [3] are expected for high field magnet applications. The critical current flowing over a polycrystalline 122 material is often reduced by impurities, voids, and intrinsic weak-link at grain boundaries [3]. Therefore, purification and densification are important for enhancement of Jc. In our previous studies, we found that a ball-milling energy during precursor powder preparation is an important parameter for the ambient pressure synthesis of Co-doped BaFe2As2 (Ba122) bulks [4, 5]. In this study, K-doped Ba122 polycrystalline bulks were synthesized using spark plasma sintering (SPS) apparatus with various sintering conditions. The structural properties, microstructure, and superconducting properties of the K-doped Ba122 bulks were evaluated. Highly pure K-doped Ba122 bulks with high density of more than 90% were successfully synthesized. The highest Jc reached more than 1×105 A/cm2 at 5 K under self-field.
[1] H. Hosono, A. Yamamoto, H. Hiramatsu, and Y. Ma, Mater. Today 21, 278 (2018).
[2] A. Yamamoto, J. Jaroszynski, C. Tarantini, L. Balicas, J. Jiang, A. Gurevich, D. C. Larbalestier, R. Jin, A. S. Sefat, M. A. McGuire, B. C. Sales, D. K. Christen, and D. Mandrus, Appl. Phys. Lett. 94, 062511 (2009).
[3] T. Katase, Y. Ishimaru, A. Tsukamoto, H. Hiramatsu, T. Kamiya et al., Nat. Commun. 2, 409 (2011).
[4] S. Tokuta and A. Yamamoto, APL Mater. 7, 111107 (2019).
[5] S. Tokuta, Y. Shimada, and A. Yamamoto, Supercond. Sci. Technol. 33, 094010 (2020).
Keywords: iron-based superconductor, polycrystalline bulk material, spark plasma sintering