The Impact of High Pressure, Doping and the Size of Crystalline Boron Grains on Creation of High-Field Pinning Centers in In Situ MgB2 Wires

In this work, we investigated the influence of isostatic pressure (of 0.1 MPa and 1.1 GPa) during heat treatment, doping, size and shape of crystalline boron grains, and annealing time at low annealing temperature (570 °C) on the formation of high-field pinning centers in MgB2 wires. The results indicate that high isostatic pressure (1.1 GPa) at low annealing temperature (570 ° C) and annealing time of 120 min significantly increases the density of high-field pinning centers in MgB2 wires with small and large boron grains. Transport measurements show that an increase of annealing time from 120 to 210 min at 1.1 GPa slightly decreases the critical current density (Jc) and irreversibility field (Birr) in MgB2 wires with large boron grains, suggesting that longer annealing time weakly affects the density of high-field pinning centers. On the other hand, for MgB2 wires with small boron grains, the annealing time of 210 min significantly reduces \(J_{\mathrm {c}}\) and \(B_{\text {irr}}\). This indicates that the longer annealing time at 1.1 GPa significantly reduces the density of high-field pinning centers. Our studies indicate that dislocations created by the hot isostatic pressure process significantly increase \(B_{\text {irr}}\) in the temperature range from 5 to 12 K. On the other hand, strains due to the shrinkage of MgB2 material increase \(B_{\text {irr}}\) in the temperature range from 12 to 34 K. The results show that small grains of crystalline boron and high isostatic pressure lead to a high density of dislocations and strains during transformation to the MgB2 phase.