Role of carbon in enhancing the performance of MgB2 superconductor

V. P.S. Awana*, Arpita Vajpayee, Monika Mudgel, Rajeev Rawat, Somobrata Acharya, H. Kishan, E. Takayama-Muromachi, A. V. Narlikar, I. Felner

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

15 Scopus citations

Abstract

The enhancement of the critical current density (Jc(H)) of carbon and nano-SiC doped MgB2 is presented and compared. The upper critical field (Hc2) being determined from resistivity under magnetic field experiments is though improved for both C substitution and nano-SiC addition the same is more pronounced for the former. In MgB2-xCx carbon is substituted for boron that induces disorder in the boron network and acts as internal pinning centres. The optimal Jc(H) values are obtained for x = 0.1 sample. In case of nano-SiC doped in MgB2, the Jc(H) improves more profoundly and two simultaneous mechanisms seems responsible to this enhancement. Highly reactive nano-SiC releases free carbon atom, which gets easily incorporated into the MgB2 lattice to act as intrinsic pinning centres. Further enhancement is observed for higher nano-SiC concentrations, where the un-reacted components serve as additional extrinsic pinning centres.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)67-72
Number of pages6
JournalPhysica C: Superconductivity and its Applications
Volume467
Issue number1-2
DOIs
StatePublished - 1 Dec 2007

Keywords

  • Critical current density
  • Flux pinning
  • MgB superconductor
  • Nano-particle doping

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Role of carbon in enhancing the performance of MgB2 superconductor'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this