Influence of neutron irradiation on the fishtail behavior of YBa2Cu3O7−δ single crystals

Effect of boron doping in the microwave surface resistance of neutron irradiated melt-textured Y1.6Ba2.3Cu3.3O7−x samples

“…Irradiation with protons [1,2] and heavy ions [3,4,5] involves charged particles that strongly interact with the solid matter, producing dislocations and/or columnar defects. Neutron irradiation may give rise to a more homogeneous distribution of defects because it involves uncharged particles, which can penetrate freely into the matter [6,7,8,9]. Depending on the neutron energy, neutron irradiation creates clusters or cascades of point defects randomly distributed into the materials, whose dimensions range from few nm to 10 nm [8,10,11,12].…”

“…Depending on the neutron energy, neutron irradiation creates clusters or cascades of point defects randomly distributed into the materials, whose dimensions range from few nm to 10 nm [8,10,11,12]. The irradiation-induced defects interact with the pre-irradiation defect structure either through the direct replacement of many point defects by a large collision cascade, or by statistical rearrangement of certain atoms (mostly oxygen atoms); so, the radiation effectiveness depends on the preexisting defect structure in the sample [6,13,14]. In order to enhance the interaction of incident neutrons with the superconducting matrix, cuprate superconductors have been doped with elements having large neutron-absorption cross sections, such as Li [14,15], B [16,17] and U [10,11,18,19], or prepared introducing normal-phase particles during the synthesis process [16,17,20].…”

Effect of boron doping in the microwave surface resistance of neutron irradiated melt-textured Y_1.6Ba_2.3Cu_3.3O_7-x samples

“…Depending on the neutron energy, neutron irradiation creates clusters or cascades of point defects randomly distributed into the materials, whose dimensions range from few nm to 10 nm [8,10,11,12]. The irradiation-induced defects interact with the pre-irradiation defect structure either through the direct replacement of many point defects by a large collision cascade, or by statistical rearrangement of certain atoms (mostly oxygen atoms); so, the radiation effectiveness depends on the preexisting defect structure in the sample [6,13,14]. In order to enhance the interaction of incident neutrons with the superconducting matrix, cuprate superconductors have been doped with ele-ments having large neutron-absorption cross sections, such as Li [14,15], B [16,17] and U [10,11,18,19], or prepared introducing normal-phase particles during the synthesis process [16,17,20].…”