Preparative procedures for high Tc cuprate superconductors

In this paper, the authors describe in brief the preparation procedures used for getting the high Tc ceramic superconductors. The processes will be discussed mainly in relation to the better-studied YBa2Cu3O∼7 (1:2:3), followed by a brief coverage of the more recent materials such as Bi-Ca-Sr-Cu and Tl-Ba-Ca-Cu oxides. Since other speakers would cover the area of thin films extensively, the authors confine themselves to the preparative procedures for bulk samples which include the often used poly-crystalline ceramic samples either as bulk or large area thick films and also the single crystals