THE EFFECT OF 5 MeV ELECTRON IRRADIATION AT 165 K ON THE STRUCTURAL AND MAGNETIC PROPERTIES OF YBCO BASED HTSC TAPE

Abstract

We investigated the impact of 5 MeV electron irradiation at 165 K (close to the superconduct-ing transition temperature Tc 90 K) on the structural transformations and charge transport at applied magnetic field 0.56 Tesla to YBa₂Cu₃O7-x (YBCO)-based and coated with Pb-Sn-Cu-Ag- layers high-temperature superconductor (HTSC) tapes of the second generation, which are already used in charge particle accelerators and magnetic plasma confinement systems. Meth-ods of XRD for structure-phase analysis revealed the irradiation induced recrystallization both in metal coatings and in YBCO-film, so the YBCO layer was exposed to mixed fluxes of elec-trons and bremsstrahlung gamma-quanta. Hall Effect measurements were implemented for de-termining electron and hole contributions in electric conductivity, magnetoresistance in the temperature range 80–320 K. Origin double-Y-plotting allowed to distinguish hole (peak at 160 K) and electron carriers and condensation from localization temperatures. Displacement de-fects responsible for the radiation induced transformations in YBCO crystallites are mainly in oxygen and copper sublattices. Interfaces YBCO-Y2O3 and YBCO-CuO serve as artificial pin-ning centers, generated both during chemical deposition and irradiation.