Crystal Size Improvement of Bi-based Superconducting Whiskers under Stress-controlled Condition

Abstract Using stress-controlled amorphous precursors, we have successfully grown Bi2Sr2Ca n-1CunOy (Bi-based) high-transition temperature superconducting whiskers with large crystal-size. Especially, under a high compressive stress attained by 1 GPa pelletizing, the crystal size of a whisker was significantly enhanced up to 9.5 mm length (growth period: 96 h) which is 2.4 times larger than that of the conventional amorphous-precursors method when using similar growth conditions and substrate compositions. In addition, by using the stress-controlled precursors, the number of the obtained Bi-based whiskers were also increased by a factor of 1.8.