JOURNAL OF SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND NOVEL MAGNETISM, vol.25, no.4, pp.799-804, 2012 (SCI-Expanded)
Transport properties on Bi-2212 superconductors can be improved by grain orientation methods while mechanical ones can be tuned up by the addition of metallic silver. Both processes can be performed simultaneously using the Laser Floating Zone (LFZ) method. In this work, Bi2Sr2CaCu2O (x) /3 wt.%Ag textured composite materials were prepared by a LFZ melting technique at different growth speeds (5, 15, 30, and 60 mm/h). In all cases, the observed microstructure after annealing shows the Bi-2212 phase as the major one. Although growth speed has no effect on the measured T (c) values, a drastic change on the J (c) values has been found. The best results, both mechanical and transport properties, have been obtained for samples grown at 15 mm/h.