Single crystals of Bi 2 Sr 2 Ca 2 Cu 3 O 10 (Bi-2223) have been grown using the travelling solvent floating zone technique in an image furnace. Annealing the crystals under high pressures of O 2 increased their critical temperature to 109 K, and resulted in sharp superconducting transitions of T c = 1 K. The superconducting anisotropy of Bi-2223 was found to be ∼50, from measurements of the lower critical field with the magnetic field applied parallel and perpendicular to the c-axis. The anisotropy of Bi-2223 is significantly reduced compared to that of Bi 2 Sr 2 CaCu 2 O 8 (Bi-2212), and this accounts for the enhanced irreversibility fields in Bi-2223. Furthermore, Bi-2223 has a higher critical current density, and a reduced magnetic relaxation rate compared to Bi-2212, which are both signatures of more effective pinning in Bi-2223 due to its reduced anisotropy.
Fe/MgB 2 tapes have been prepared starting with pre-reacted binary MgB 2 powders. As shown by resistive and inductive measurements, the reduction of particle size to a few microns by ball milling has little influence on B c2 , while the superconducting properties of the individual MgB 2 grains are essentially unchanged. Reducing the particle size causes an enhancement of B irr from 14 to 16 T, while J c has considerably increased at high fields, its slope J c (B) being reduced. At 4.2K, values of 5.3 · 10 4 and 1.2 · 10 3 A/cm 2 were measured at 3.5 and 10 T, respectively, suggesting a dominant role of the conditions at the grain interfaces. A systematic variation of these conditions at the interfaces is undertaken in order to determine the limit of transport properties for Fe/MgB 2 tapes. The addition of 5% Mg to MgB 2 powder was found to affect neither J c nor B c2 . For the tapes with the highest J c values, very high exponential n factors were measured: n = 148, 89 and 17 at 3.5, 5 and 10T, respectively and measurements of critical current versus applied strain have been performed. The mechanism leading to high transport critical current densities of filamentary Fe/MgB 2 tapes based on MgB 2 particles is discussed.
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