Synthesis of Electron- and Hole-Doped Bulk BaFe2As2 Superconductors by Mechanical Alloying

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates a scalable mechanical alloying method to synthesize electron- and hole-doped BaFe2As2 superconductors with homogeneous doping, enabling potential industrial applications in superconducting devices.

Contribution

It introduces a novel, scalable mechanical alloying process for producing high-quality doped BaFe2As2 superconductors at room temperature.

Findings

Successful synthesis of doped BaFe2As2 via mechanical alloying.

Optimal milling time between 1-1.5 hours.

Post-milling heat treatment yields superconducting bulk samples.

Abstract

Here, we report the successful synthesis of electron- (Ni) and hole- (K) doped bulk BaFe2As2 compounds by means of mechanical alloying (MA) process. The MA technique allows one to obtain amorphous phase BaFe2As2 with a homogeneous distribution of doping atoms at room temperature without continuous heating. We found the optimum time for high-energy milling is in the range between 1-1.5 hours. Using pre-synthesised FeAs and NiAs precursors, we successfully obtained BaFe2-xNixAs2 and Ba1-xKxFe2As2 superconducting bulk samples after short-range heat treatment. This method can be easily scaled according to industrial needs to provide high-quality bulk superconducting material for wires, trapped field magnets and other applications.