Journal article
Understanding irradiation damage in high-temperature superconductors for fusion reactors using high resolution X-ray absorption spectroscopy
- Abstract:
- Understanding the effects of fast neutrons on high-temperature superconductors is of growing importance as new compact fusion reactors rely on these materials to generate the high magnetic fields needed to confine the plasma. The critical temperature of the most promising candidate material for small-scale fusion devices, rare-earth barium cuprate, is known to decrease monotonically with radiation dose, indicating the generation of lattice defects everywhere in the material. Here, we use high-energy-resolution X-ray absorption spectroscopy to probe how the local environment around the copper atoms is influenced by point defects induced by He+ ion irradiation in the oxygen sublattice. Density functional theory calculations are used to interpret spectral features and we find clear evidence that ion irradiation significantly disrupts the bonding environment around the copper atoms in the copper-oxygen planes responsible for superconductivity in this compound. We propose the generation of a specific Frenkel defect that is consistent with our experimental results. Our results challenge previous assumptions in the literature that irradiation produces point defects only in the chain sites. In addition, we show that partial recovery is possible by annealing at modest temperatures, which may have implications for the operation of superconducting fusion magnets.
- Publication status:
- Published
- Peer review status:
- Peer reviewed
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(Preview, Version of record, pdf, 3.0MB, Terms of use)
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- Publisher copy:
- 10.1038/s43246-022-00272-0
Authors
- Publisher:
- Springer Nature
- Journal:
- Communications Materials More from this journal
- Volume:
- 3
- Article number:
- 52
- Publication date:
- 2022-08-05
- Acceptance date:
- 2022-07-11
- DOI:
- EISSN:
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2662-4443
- Language:
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English
- Keywords:
- Pubs id:
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1274016
- Local pid:
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pubs:1274016
- Deposit date:
-
2022-08-26
Terms of use
- Copyright holder:
- Nicholls et al.
- Copyright date:
- 2022
- Rights statement:
- ©2022 The Author(s). Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
- Licence:
- CC Attribution (CC BY)
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