Manufacture of Nb3Al Short Wires by RHQT Method Using a Newly Designed Apparatus

Abstract

A new apparatus is designed and fabricated for rapid heating and quenching (RHQ) process of Nb/Al precursor short wires. As the primary step, Nb/Al precursor with large Nb/Al filaments is manufactured through rod-in-tube (RIT) method to study the RHQ parameters. This apparatus could heat Nb/Al precursor short wire up to about 2000 °C in 10 ms-100 ms and then quench the wire into molten gallium. Results of line scan from SEM-EDS show that Nb3Al is formed in short wires. Tests show that the zero-resistance temperature of Nb3Al short wire is about 17.7 K, which also indicates that stoichiometric Nb3Al is formed. However, the critical current (IC) is only 1.8 A at 10.2 K. The low ICcan be explained by the low volume ratio of superconducting Nb3Al and lots of voids along the wire. Further optimization and improvements will be performed.