Radiation effects in high-temperature superconductors: A brief review

A brief review of the published results on radiation effects in high-temperature superconductors is given. The focus is on six observations: lack of ionization damage, displacement damage, displacement thresholds near 20 eV, effects on transition temperature and critical current, amorphization, and atomic site- and sublattice-specific damage processes. It is concluded that these new ceramic superconductors have a very complex interaction with radiation fields. For ambient-temperature, fast-neutron irradiation, they show effects similar to those observed for A-15 superconductors. However, their total response is far more complex. This paper is based on a presentation made in the symposium “Irradiation-Enhanced Materials Science and Engineering” presented as part of the ASM INTERNATIONAL 75th Anniversary celebration at the 1988 World Materials Congress in Chicago, IL, September 25–29, 1988, under the auspices of the Nuclear Materials Committee of TMS-AIME and ASM-MSD.     

Radiation effects in high-temperature superconductors: A brief review

A brief review of the published results on radiation effects in high-temperature superconductors is given. The focus is on six observations: lack of ionization damage, displacement damage, displacement thresholds near 20 eV, effects on transition temperature and critical current, amorphization, and atomic site- and sublattice-specific damage processes. It is concluded that these new ceramic superconductors have a very complex interaction with radiation fields. For ambient-temperature, fast-neutron irradiation, they show effects similar to those observed for A-15 superconductors. However, their total response is far more complex. This paper is based on a presentation made in the symposium “Irradiation-Enhanced Materials Science and Engineering” presented as part of the ASM INTERNATIONAL 75th Anniversary celebration at the 1988 World Materials Congress in Chicago, IL, September 25–29, 1988, under the auspices of the Nuclear Materials Committee of TMS-AIME and ASM-MSD.