Superconducting properties and magneto-optical imaging of Ba0.6K0.4Fe2As2 PIT wires with Ag addition

TL;DR

This study reports the fabrication of Ba0.6K0.4Fe2As2 superconducting wires with Ag addition, demonstrating improved critical current densities and revealing weak links at grain boundaries through magneto-optical imaging.

Contribution

It introduces a new fabrication method for Fe-based superconducting wires with Ag addition and uses magneto-optical imaging to analyze grain boundary properties.

Findings

Critical current density of 1.3×10^4 A/cm² at 4.2 K with Ag addition

Magneto-optical imaging reveals weak links at grain boundaries

Intragranular Jc of 6.0×10^4 A/cm² at 20 K

Abstract

We have fabricated (Ba,K)Fe2As2 superconducting wires through ex-situ powder-in-tube method. Silver was used as a chemical addition to improve the performance of these superconducting wires. The transport critical current densities (Jc) have reached 1.3\times104 A/cm and 1.0\times104 A/cm2 at 4.2 K under self field in the wires with and without Ag addition. We used magneto-optical (MO) imaging technique to investigate the properties of grain boundaries in the (Ba,K)Fe2As2 superconducting wire with Ag addition. MO images show the weak links in the Fe-based superconducting wires for the first time. An intragranular Jc of 6.0\times104 A/cm2 at 20 K is obtained from MO image, which is consistent with the estimation from M-H measurement.