Change in Physical, Electrical and Magnetic Properties of Bi-2212 Superconducting Materials Co-Substituted with Nano-Sized Zinc and Sodium

Enhancing the physical and morphological characteristics of BSCCO ceramics through element substitution or addition at varying rates can lead to an improvement in the superconducting properties of the material. Because of their special qualities, introducing nano-sized particles into the BSCCO system can produce very appealing outcomes. The investigation of substituting nano-sized zinc particles to calcium sites attempted to improve the inter-granular connections by settling the nanoparticles between the grains. In the presented study, the effect of substituting different amounts of nano-sized (< 100 nm) ZnO nanoparticles to Ca sites in the Bi-2212 superconductor system was investigated. The experimental data and initial composition had never been discussed in the literature before. Ceramic superconducting materials produced by the solid-state reaction method are carried out to X-ray powder diffraction measurements (XRD) for phase formation and crystal structure analysis, scanning electron microscope (SEM) measurements to determine their morpholic properties, resistivity temperature measurements (R-T) to determine for electrical properties and (M-H) measurements to determine for diamagnetic properties. XRD measurement results show that the main phase structure in all samples is the Bi-2212 high temperature phase. Although the diffraction patterns of the samples were similar in the XRD measurement results, the number of impurity phases increased in the sample containing nano-sized zinc substituted at x = 0.075. Plate-like grains were formed in the morphological structure of the samples, indicating the presence of Bi-2212 high temperature phases. Moreover, although the granular properties of the samples are similar to each other, the intergranular voids and angles increased in sample doped with x = 0.075 the nano-sized zinc ratio. All samples exhibit metallic behavior above the onset transition temperature. In substituted samples, although the highest onset transition temperature was observed in the nano-sized Zn substituted sample at x = 0.025, the highest superconductivity transition temperature value was observed in the nano-sized Zn-free sample compared to all samples. To characterize the magnetic properties, M-H measurements were performed as a function of magnetic field. All samples exhibited hysteresis behaviour, which is a characteristic feature of Bi-2212 high temperature superconducting materials. The critical current density performance of the samples was calculated from magnetization measurements using the Bean current model. Among the substituted samples, although improvements were observed in terms of magnetic properties in the sample containing nano-sized Zn at x = 0.025, the largest hysteresis area in the M-H results was observed in the sample that did not contain nano-sized Zn.