Improvement of critical properties of undoped, multifilamentary MgB 2 wires in Nb/Cu after annealing under high gas pressure.

Raw MgB2 wires have been manufactured by Hyper Tech Inc. Each of their 18 cores contained undoped in situ powder surrounded by an Nb barrier and placed in a Cu sheath, and cores were coated in a common Monel sheath. Wires of diameters 0.63 and 0.83 mm were annealed under high argon pressure (up to 1 GPa). Parameters of such HIP process (temperature, time, and pressure) were varied in order to determine their optimal values. Superconducting properties of such samples were investigated by means of four-probe critical current j c measurement. Bitter magnet producing magnetic field up to 14 T was used. It provided place for samples 70 mm long in parallel field and 20 mm long in perpendicular field. Results include critical current j c and pinning force density F p dependencies on magnetic field as well as Kramer plots. Critical current of 104 A/cm 2 was achieved at 12 T magnetic field. SEM pictures of wire cross sections were also taken to determine quality of Nb barrier and microstructure of superconducting material. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]