Dou S X, Shcherbakova O, Yeoh W K, Kim J H, Soltanian S, Wang X L, Senatore C, Flukiger R, Dhalle M, Husnjak O, Babic E
Institute for Superconducting and Electronic Materials, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, NSW 2522, Australia.
Phys Rev Lett. 2007 Mar 2;98(9):097002. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.98.097002. Epub 2007 Feb 28.
A comparative study of pure, SiC, and C doped MgB2 wires has revealed that the SiC doping allowed C substitution and MgB2 formation to take place simultaneously at low temperatures. C substitution enhances H_{c2}, while the defects, small grain size, and nanoinclusions induced by C incorporation and low-temperature processing are responsible for the improvement in J_{c}. The irreversibility field (H_{irr}) for the SiC doped sample reached the benchmarking value of 10 T at 20 K, exceeding that of NbTi at 4.2 K. This dual reaction model also enables us to predict desirable dopants for enhancing the performance properties of MgB2.
