On the roles of graphene oxide doping for enhanced supercurrent in MgB2 based superconductors.

Due to their graphene-like properties after oxygen reduction, incorporation of graphene oxide (GO) sheets into correlated-electron materials offers a new pathway for tailoring their properties. Fabricating GO nanocomposites with polycrystalline MgB2 superconductors leads to an order of magnitude enhancement of the supercurrent at 5 K/8 T and 20 K/4 T. Herein, we introduce a novel experimental approach to overcome the formidable challenge of performing quantitative microscopy and microanalysis of such composites, so as to unveil how GO doping influences the structure and hence the material properties. Atom probe microscopy and electron microscopy were used to directly image the GO within the MgB2, and we combined these data with computational simulations to derive the property-enhancing mechanisms. Our results reveal synergetic effects of GO, namely, via localized atomic (carbon and oxygen) doping as well as texturing of the crystals, which provide both inter- and intra-granular flux pinning. This study opens up new insights into how low-dimensional nanostructures can be integrated into composites to modify the overall properties, using a methodology amenable to a wide range of applications.

The effects of graphene doping on the in-field Jc of MgB2 wires.

The field and temperature dependence of the critical current density Jct were measured for both un-doped and graphene doped MgB2/Fe wires manufactured by 99.999% Crystalline Boron and 10% excess Magnesium (99%, 325 mesh). At 4.2 K and 10 T, Jct was estimated to be for the wire sintered at 800 degrees C for 30 minutes, the doped sample is almost improved as one order, compared with the best un-doped sample. At the same time, the temperature dependence of the upper critical field (Hc2) and the irreversibility field (Hirr) for the samples will also be included from the resistance (R)-temperature (T). A significant increase in the upper critical field is the main cause of the enhancement of the critical current density, Jct, in the high field region. The calculated active cross-sectional area fraction (A(F)) represents the connectivity factor between adjacent grains. This value is decreased with wire samples, which is why the improvement of transport Jct is lower than the improvement of magnetic Jcm in diffusion bulk sample.