Dynamic behavior of reversible oxygen migration in irradiated-annealed high temperature superconducting wires

• Published in: Scientific reports Vol. 10; no. 1; p. 14848
• Main Authors: Zhang, Yi, Rupich, M. W., Solovyov, Vyacheslav, Li, Qiang, Goyal, Amit
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group 10.09.2020; Nature Publishing Group UK
• Subjects: Annealing; CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND SUPERFLUIDITY; Crystallinity; High temperature; High temperature thermoplastics; Material extrusion; Oxygen; Point defects; Polyphenylene sulfide; Radiation; Spectroscopy; Transmission electron microscopy
• ISSN: 2045-2322; 2045-2322
• DOI: 10.1038/s41598-020-70663-1

Abstract We use atomically resolved scanning transmission electron microscopy and electron energy loss spectroscopy to determine the atomic-scale structural, chemical and electronic properties of artificial engineered defects in irradiated-annealed high temperature superconducting wires based on epitaxial Y(Dy)BCO film. We directly probe the oxygen vacancy defects in both plane and chain sites after irradiation with 18-meV Au ions. The plane site vacancies are reoccupied during post-annealing treatment. Our results demonstrate the dynamic reversible behavior of oxygen point defects, which explains the depression and recovery of self-field critical current and critical temperature in irradiation-annealing process. These findings reveal the strong effect of oxygen vacancies in different sites on the superconductivity properties of irradiated Y(Dy)BCO film, and provide important insights into defects engineering of 2G HTS coil wires.