Nuclear Applications in High Temperature Superconductors

The revolutionary breakthroughs promised by the discovery of high temperature superconductivity (HTC) have yet to be fulfilled, in part due to difficult materials problems associated with the brittle nature of ceramics. A second difficulty is related to the current carrying capacity of these new materials. The traditional method of increasing current density in low temperature superconductors is to introduce high densities of dislocations by cold working. The dislocations pin magnetic flux and thus increase the critical current. However, cold working cannot be used in high temperature superconductors because of the brittleness of these ceramic materials. Fortunately there are other techniques to improve the critical current density. One promising area involves the use of irradiation to introduce the required pinning centers. The effectiveness of the various forms of irradiation is presented below. Technical and practical issues remain with the various forms of irradiation, but for many applications, irradiation remains the best method to improve the current carrying capacity of high temperature superconductors