BIAXIAL ALIGNMENT OF HIGH-T-C SUPERCONDUCTOR POLYCRYSTALS .7. DEMONSTRATION OF BIAXIAL ALIGNMENT OF EUBA2CU3OX (EU-123) BY POLE FIGURE MEASUREMENT

Bulk EuBa2Cu3Ox high-T-c superconductor thick film specimens of 350 mu thickness were fabricated using a combination of magnetic field and m echanical force (acting normal to each other) to form a ''granular sin gle crystal'' to reduce the grain boundary weak links due to large-ang le grain orientation mismatch. The biaxially aligned (and hence, triax ially aligned) specimens exhibited textures in which the grains of the superconductor ceramics were aligned by a mechanical force such that their [001] axes were perpendicular to the surfaces of the thick film specimens, whereas their [010] axes were oriented by a magnetic force to lie parallel to the magnetic field direction in the specimen plane. The top and bottom surfaces of the double aligned thick films have be en characterized by reflection XRD (2 theta-scan and chi-circle scan) and XRD pole figure determination. We describe here the biaxial alignm ent process for EuBa2Cu3Ox as currently practiced by this group and re port the first semiquantitative results of an X-ray pole figure analys is of material prepared by this method.