Magneto-resistivity and magnetization investigations of YBCO superconductor added by nano-wires and nano-particles of titanium oxide

Abstract

We study in this work the influence of titanium oxide (TiO2) nano-wires (NWs) and nano-particles (NPs) addition on the flux trapping potential of YBa2Cu3Oy (YBCO for brevity). Samples were characterized using various techniques, including X-rays diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, temperature dependence of resistivity under magnetic field and magnetization measurements. Three kinds of YBCO + x TiO2 samples with x = 0.0 and 0.1 wt% were synthetized via the solid-state reaction route. The activation energy U0, the coherence length ξ(0), the upper critical field Hc2(0) and irreversibly field Hirr are estimated and discussed in the relation to TiO2 addition effect. The derived parameters are increased for samples containing 0.1 wt% of TiO2 nano-entities and are more enhanced in Y-Ti NPs sample. It results therefore, that suitable amount of TiO2 nano-particles addition can be useful tool for the manufacture of a promising YBCO compound for practical applications.