Study on Microstructure Characterization of YBCO Bulk Prepared by Directional Seeded Infiltration-Growth

Abstract The seeded infiltration-growth process is an alternative to replace conventional melt processing techniques for the preparation of bulk YBa 2 Cu 3 O 7- s (Y-123) with finely dispersed small size of Y 2 BaCuO 5 (Y-211) particles. The directional solidification is also a quite effective technique to produce well-oriented cylinder grains. Well-oriented single domain Y-123 bulks can be fabricated by combining seeded infiltration-growth and directional solidification technique (DSIG). The infiltration-growth process is able to control the size and distribution of Y-211 particles in the final Y-123 superconductor and can fabricate net-shape bulk. Y-211 particles and a liquid phase precursor were used as starting materials in the present investigation. The main parameters (temperature gradient, configuration and maximum processing temperature) of the directional seeded infiltration-growth process were discussed in the present paper. The result shows that Y-211 particle sizes upon using 035 liquid phase composition are smaller than those upon using other two liquid phase compositions.