Analysis of interdiffusion between SmFeAsO0.92F0.08 and metals for ex situ fabrication of superconducting wire

TL;DR

This paper reports on the successful fabrication of SmFeAsO0.92F0.08 superconducting wires using an ex-situ powder-in-tube method, with a binder that maintains F content and achieves high critical current density.

Contribution

It introduces a novel binder approach that compensates F loss during ex-situ fabrication, enhancing superconducting properties of Sm-1111 wires.

Findings

Superconducting Sm-1111 wires achieved a critical current density of ~4000 A/cm2 at 4.2 K.

The binder effectively maintains F content, preventing reduction in superconducting transition temperature.

Ex-situ fabrication with binder improves superconducting volume fraction and performance.

Abstract

We demonstrate the fabrication of superconducting SmFeAsO1-xFx (Sm-1111) wires by using the ex-situ powder-in-tube technique. Sm-1111 powder and a binder composed of SmF3, samarium arsenide, and iron arsenide were used to synthesize the superconducting core. Although the F content of Sm-1111 is reduced in the process of ex-situ fabrication, the binder compensates by sufficiently supplementing the F content, thereby preventing a decrease in the superconducting transition temperature and a shrinking of the superconducting volume fraction. Thus, in the superconducting Sm-1111 wire with the binder, the transport critical current density reaches the highest value of ~4000 A/cm2 at 4.2 K.