Faculty of Science and Technology

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Browsing Faculty of Science and Technology by Author "Akimitsu, J."

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    Afm, stm and sts studies of grain boundaries And ion-beam induced defects in MGB2
    (Nova Science Publishers, 2001-06) Narayan, Himanshu; Narlikar, A. V.; Herrmann, P. S. P.; Samanta, S. B.; Gupta, Anurag; Kanjilal, D.; Muranaka, T.; Akimitsu, J.; Vijayaraghavan, R.
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    Grain boundaries as weak links: The case of MgB2 with reference to YNi2B2C
    (The American Physical Society, 2002-02-20) Samanta, S. B.; Narayan, Himanshu; Gupta, Anurag; Narlikar, A. V.; Muranaka, T.; Akimitsu, J.
    The grain boundaries ~GB’s! in the intermetallic superconductor MgB2 , interestingly, do not show suppression of supercurrent density. This unexpected behavior has been investigated by a scanning tunneling microscopy/spectroscopy technique at atomic resolution. The GB in MgB2 is seen as an amorphous region extending from ;50 to 200 Å and has a metallic character. This observation supports proximity coupling between the grains, which explains why supercurrent density does not degrade in this material. The results for another intermetallic superconductor YNi2B2C having GB’s ~average width ;30 Å! that are quasi-insulating in nature have also been presented and compared with the former.
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    SEM, STM/STS and heavy ion irradiation studies on magnesium diboride superconductor
    (Elsevier Ltd., 2002) Narayan, Himanshu; Samanta, S. B.; Gupta, Anurag; Narlikar, A. V.; Kishore, R.; Sood, K. N.; Kanjilal, D.; Muranaka, T.; Akimitsu, J.
    We have presented here the results of SEM and STM/STS investigations carried out on MgB2 superconductor. The SEM pictures show porous surface and well-linked granular structure in which bigger grains (few micrometer size) seem to be agglomeration of smaller, nearly hexagonal grains (size nearly 100 nm). Hexagonal structure of Mg and B layers have been directly observed in atomically resolved STM images. The lattice constants have been determined to be aMg ¼ 3:1 AA, aB ¼ 1:7 AA and c ¼ 3:5 AA. Grain boundaries (GB) of width ranging from 50 to 200 AA have been observed. Absence of weak link effects despite wide GBs has been attributed to the metallic nature of the amorphous region of the GB interior as inferred from STS analysis. Irradiation with 200 MeV 107Ag ions gives tracks of about 65 AA in the bulk of the sample. This is expected to give higher value of critical current density owing to the flux pinning mechanism, which is related to possibility of wide practical application of this material.