Flux-Pinning Behaviors and Mechanism According to Dopant Level in (Fe, Ti) Paticle-Doped MgB$_2$ Superconductor

TL;DR

This study investigates how varying levels of Fe and Ti dopants affect flux-pinning behaviors in MgB$_2$ superconductors, revealing optimal doping levels for enhanced magnetic properties and the impact of temperature on flux pinning mechanisms.

Contribution

It provides experimental insights and a flux-pinning model that explains the effects of dopant levels and temperature on flux-pinning in (Fe, Ti) doped MgB$_2$ superconductors.

Findings

Optimal dopant level improves flux-pinning and magnetization.

Over-doping reduces flux-pinning due to defect segregation.

Temperature increases weaken flux-pinning, especially in over-doped samples.

Abstract

We have studied flux-pinning effects of MgB$_2$ superconductor by doping (Fe, Ti) particles of which radius is 163 nm on average. 5 wt.\% (Fe, Ti) doped MgB$_2$ among the specimens showed the best field dependence of magnetization and 25 wt.\% one did the worst at 5 K . The difference of field dependence of magnetization of the two increased as temperature increased. Here we show experimental results of (Fe, Ti) particle-doped MgB$_2$ according to dopant level and the causes of the behaviors. Flux-pinning effect of volume defects-doped superconductor was modeled in ideal state. During the study, we had to divide M-H curve of volume defect-dominating superconductor as three discreet regions for analyzing flux pinning effects, which are diamagnetic increase region, $\Delta$H=$\Delta$B region, and diamagnetic decrease region. As a result, flux-pinning effects of volume defects decreased as dopant level increased over the optimal dopant level, which was caused by decrease of flux-pinning limit of a volume defect. And similar behaviors are obtained as dopant level decreased below the optimal dopant level, which was caused by the decreased number of volume defects. Comparing the theory with experimental results, deviations increased as dopant level increased over the optimal dopant level, whereas the two was well matched on less dopant level than the optimal dopant level. The behavior is considered to be caused by segregation of volume defects. On the other hand, the property of over-doped specimens dramatically decrease as temperature increases, which is caused by double decreases of flux-pinning limit of a volume defect and segregation effect.