Effects of neutron irradiation on polycrystalline Mg11 B2

Abstract

We studied the influence of the disorder introduced in polycrystalline Mg B2 samples by neutron irradiation. To circumvent self-shielding effects due to the strong interaction between thermal neutrons and B10 we employed isotopically enriched B11 which contains 40 times less B10 than natural B. The comparison of electrical and structural properties of different series of samples irradiated in different neutron sources, also using Cd shields, allowed us to conclude that, despite the low B10 content, the main damage mechanisms are caused by thermal neutrons, whereas fast neutrons play a minor role. Irradiation leads to an improvement in both upper critical field and critical current density for an exposure level in the range 1-2× 1018 cm-2. With increasing fluence the superconducting properties are depressed. An in-depth analysis of the critical field and current density behavior has been carried out to identify what scattering and pinning mechanisms come into play. Finally, the correlation between some characteristic lengths and the transition widths is analyzed. © 2006 The American Physical Society.