Fabrication and Analysis of Nanocrystalline Superconductor YSrBiCuO at Different Calcination Temperatures

Tremendous interest has developed over the past two decades in understanding as well as utilizing in a variety of applications with the discovery of high-TC superconducting materials like Yttrium Barium Cupric Oxide, Bismuth Strontium Calcium Copper Oxide and Thallium Calcium Barium Copper Oxide. The thin films of these materials are expected to play an important role in the area of microelectronics, especially for interconnects in integrated circuits, Josephson junctions, magnetic field sensors and optical detectors. In this work, the authors designed a new nanocrystalline ceramic type II high-TC superconductor, Yttrium strontium bismuth Copper Oxide (YSrBiCuO/YSBCO). The YSBCO was prepared by the solid state thermo chemical reaction technique involving mixing, milling, calcination and sintering. In order to show the viability of the proposed method, super-conducting powder was prepared in special furnace. The sample was analyzed by X-Ray Diffraction (XRD), an indispensible non-destructive tool for structural materials characterization and quality control which makes use of the Debye-Scherrer method. The comparison of XRD results with JCPDS files and applying XPERT-PRO software confirmed the orthorhombic structure of the sample. X-ray instrumental peak broadening analysis was used to evaluate the size and lattice strain by the Williamson-Hall Plot method. It was characterized by using Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) which revealed that its particle size is in the nanometer and confirmed the calculated value of particle size from Debye Scherrers formula. EDX plot shows the presence of all the constituents. Dislocation density () also is calculated.