Microstructure and critical current density of zone melt textured YBa2Cu3O6+x/Y2BaCuO5 with BaSnO3 additions

Additions of BaSnO3 have been made to YBa2Cu3O6+x/Y2BaCuO5 composite wires to examine its potential for improving solidification processing and enhancing pinning. Zone melting has been used to produce texture in extruded YBa2Cu3O6+x (Y-123) wires with Y2BaCuO5(211) and BaSnO3 additions. BaSnO3 additions markedly improve the magnetization properties over similarly textured Y-123 or Y-123+211 wires in low fields, but do not show a noticeable improvement at higher fields (≳2 T). Microstructural effects of BaSnO3 include the growth of much larger Y-123 grains, and a substantial reduction in size of 211 precipitates. Magnetic critical current densities (Jc) in excess of 1.2×105 A/cm2 in zero field, and 3.0×104 A/cm2 at 1 T are observed.