Complete flux jumping in nano-structured MgB2 superconductors prepared by mechanical alloying

High density nano-crystalline MgB₂ bulk superconductors with induced pinning centres were prepared from elemental precursors by a sequence of ball milling, heat treatment, and final pressing. The XRD results revealed the main phase was MgB₂ with a minor component of MgO. The magnetic moment versus temperature indicated that the transition temperature of MgB₂ samples was around 34 K, which is less than the typical transition temperature of commercial powders and also the transition temperature strongly depended on the milling time. It is well known that introduction of defects, grain boundaries and impurities act as effective flux pinning centres in MgB₂ and results in increased critical current density, J_c and decreased the transition temperature, T_c. The magnetization measurements were performed using VSM at 10 K, 20 K and 30 K, and the M–H curves indicated a complete flux jump effect, which is a severe problem for the application of superconductors. It was determined that a noticeable amount of heating (0.3 K jumps at 10 K) occurs at these jumps. In addition, it was found that the sweeping rate of magnetic field and the size of bulk sample are very effective to promote the flux jumping and whereas a low sweeping rate (12 Oe/s) avoids these “avalanches”, consistent with a kind of supercritical phenomenon: going slower allows the field gradients to stay close enough to equilibrium so that the avalanche effect is not triggered. In contrast, the sweeping rate of 100 Oe/s leads to numerous jumps.