A low-cost approach for recycling large GdBCO bulk superconductors using an infiltration technique with different liquid sources

Abstract

Abstract The high-temperature superconductor has become a research hotspot, because of its high critical temperature, strong trapped flux density, stable suspension characteristics and large magnet levitation force. Single-domain REBa2Cu3O7−δ (REBCO) superconductors, where RE is a rare-earth element such as Y, Gd, Sm or Nd, have wide and potential applications in high-tech fields, such as micro-magnet superconducting maglev trains, superconducting motors and superconducting magnetic separation systems. However, a large number of multi-domain samples are easily produced in the preparation process, resulting in a significantly lower success rate and a significant increase in cost, which restricts their practical applications. Thus, we successfully recycle a series of GdBCO samples by re-supplementing the liquid phase lost in the primary growth process and pre-treating the failed sample as solid-phase source billets, which was proposed by Shi. The growth morphology and superconducting properties of the recycled GdBCO bulk superconductors are investigated in detail in this study. The results show that the key superconductivity properties have been significantly improved, which provides the scientific basis and new ideas for the development of low-cost and highly efficient fabrication yields of REBCO bulk superconductors.