The achievement of large critical currents is critical to the applications of high-temperature superconductors. Recent developments have shown that melt processing is suitable for producing high Jc oxide superconductors. Using magnetic forces between such high Jc oxide superconductors and magnets, a person could be levitated.This book has grown largely out of research works on melt processing of high-temperature superconductors conducted at ISTEC Superconductivity Research Laboratory. The chapters build on melt processing, microstructural characterization, fundamentals of flux pinning, critical current, and applications of bulk monolithic superconductors. The text also describes the basic mechanism of levitation and its application. This book will be useful for research workers, engineers, and graduate students in the field of superconductivity.List of Authors: H Fujimoto, S Gotoh, T Izumi; N Koshizuka, K Miya, M Murakami, N Nakamura, Y Nakamura, Y Shiohara, H Takaichi, T Taguchi, M Uesaka, H W Weber, K Yamaguchi.

Provides coverage of the ongoing investigations on bismuth-based high-temperature cuprate superconductors, integrating scattered research activities and literature from 70 leading scientists throughout the world. The text covers crystal structures and microstructures, reversible or equilibrium magnetic and thermal properties, atomic site tunnel spectroscopy, experimental studies concerning equilibrium phases, and more.

Included in this volume are papers on biaxial and triaxial crystallographic texturing, epitaxial growth on biaxially textured substrates, melt-processing of YBCO, and basic information about HTS materials concerning phase diagrams, measurement of physical properties, characterization, and effects of various defects including grain boundaries on supercurrent transmission. Proceedings of the symposium held at the 104th Annual Meeting of The American Ceramic Society, April 28-May1, 2002 in Missouri; Ceramic Transactions, Volume 140.

The discovery of high-temperature superconductivity [1986] by Bendnorz and Muller in the La-BA-Cu-O system resulted in very extensive research work about the discovery and synthesis of other high-temperature superconductors, such as Y-BA-Cu-O and Bi-Sr-Ca-Cu-O. These new superconducting materials, possessing superconductivity above liquid nitrogen

With its comprehensive review of the current knowledge and the future requirements in the field, this book presents all the features of bulk high temperature superconducting materials. Starting from physical and chemical fundamentals, the authors move on to portray methods and problems of materials processing, thoroughly working out the characteristic properties of bulk superconductors in contrast to long conductors and films. They provide a wide range of specific materials characteristics with respect to the latest developments and future applications guiding from fundamentals to practical engineering examples. The authors are all leading international specialists involved in the field of high TC superconductor bulk materials since the beginning. Of utmost interest to engineers, scientists, and PhD students working in this field.

Physical & Material Properties of High Temperature Superconductors

The main features of high-temperature superconductors (HTSC) that define their properties are intrinsic brittleness of oxide cuprates, the layered anisotropic structure and the supershort coherence length. Taking into account these features, this treatise presents research into HTSC microstructure and properties, and also explores the possibilities of optimization of the preparation techniques and superconducting compositions. The "composition-technique-experiment-theory-model," employed here, assumes considerable HTSC defectiveness and structure heterogeneity and helps to draw a comprehensive picture of modern representations of the microstructure, strength and the related structure-sensitive properties of the materials considered. Special attention is devoted to the Bi-Sr-Ca-Cu-O and Y-Ba-Cu-O families, which currently offer the most promising applications. Including a great number of illustrations and references, this monograph addresses students, post-graduate students and specialists, taking part in the development, preparation and research of new materials. The new edition had been updated intensively, especially experimental investigations and modeling conductive and elastic properties of HTC superconductors have been added.

The purpose of this book is to offer the high-Tc community a comprehensive, state-of-the-art review on bulk processing with the hope that the book would serve in part as an updated review for expert scientists and in part as a reference/text book on processing for young scientists/graduate students and those who wish to keep track of advances and technological trends in HTSC.Readers in the superconductor science/technology/education areas will find this book prepared by the world's leading experts informative and useful.

A much-needed update on complex high-temperature superconductors, focusing on materials aspects; this timely book coincides with a recent major break-through of the discovery of iron-based superconductors. It provides an overview of materials aspects of high-temperature superconductors, combining introductory aspects, description of new physics, material aspects, and a description of the material properties This title is suitable for researchers in materials science, physics and engineering. Also for technicians interested in the applications of superconductors, e.g. as biomagnets