The effect of nano-powder additions on the superconducting properties of MgB/sub 2/

To investigate the effect of Ag or SiC nano-powder additions on the superconducting properties of MgB/sub 2/, a series of superconducting (Ag)/sub (x)wt.-%/(MgB/sub 2/)/sub (100-x)wt.-%/(Ag/sub x/-MgB/sub 2/) and (SiC)/sub (x)wt.-%/(MgB/sub 2/)/sub (100-x)wt.-%/((SiC)/sub x/-MgB/sub 2/)(0/spl les/x/spl les/20), containing Ag and SiC nano-powders, respectively, of different diameters (30 nm and 130 nm), were prepared by a simple solid-state reaction route, cold-pressed into a pellet form and investigated. To maintain the same environment of MgB/sub 2//stainless-steel tapes/wires, Ag/sub x/-MgB/sub 2/ and (SiC)/sub x/-MgB/sub 2/ pellets made out of the mixed powders were put inside stainless steel tubes and then sintered at 900/spl deg/C for two hours in Ar atmosphere. Characterization performed included both X-ray diffraction and magnetization. No impurity phase was identified for as-rolled samples. However, both the Ag/sub x/-MgB/sub 2/ and (SiC)/sub x/-MgB/sub 2/ composite pellets, when sintered, contain various impurity phases. The isothermal magnetizations M(H) of a series of samples were measured at temperatures between 5 and 50 K in fields up to 5 T, using a PPMS-9 (Quantum Design). The optimal amounts of Ag and SiC nano-powder in Ag/sub x/-MgB/sub 2/ and (SiC)/sub x/-MgB/sub 2/ to obtain the largest flux pinning effect are /spl sim/8 and /spl sim/4 wt.-%, respectively. The "two-step" structures in ZFC M(T) curves of (SiC)/sub x/-MgB/sub 2/ were more developed than Ag/sub x/-MgB/sub 2/. The best flux pinning centers can be created by adding a suitable size and amount of SiC nano-powder, not too large to increase the decoupling between the MgB/sub 2/ grains.