Property improvement of superconductor materials by neutron and ion irradiation

Since the high-temperature superconductor of oxide type was founded in 1986, many researches and efforts have been performed for finding its application field. First of all, the improvement of critical current property as well as the mechanical property is important for the application. The improvement of the critical current can be achieved by forming the nano-size defect working as a flux pinning center inside the superconductor. The nano-size defect can be effectively formed by using neutron irradiation of HANARO in KAERI. All properties of most of materials after irradiation become bad. On the contrary, the critical current property of the superconductor is largely improved after irradiation. In this report, the literature survey on the neutron and (heavy) ion irradiation of the superconductor was summarized, and the emission property of superconductor was evaluated using neutron flux in HANARO