Thermogravimetric analysis - a powerful tool for the refinement of the synthesis process of Hg-based superconductors

The paper presents the results of studies on thermogravimetric (TG) charact erization of precursors and Hg-based superconductors synthesized by the sol -gel method. TG experiments were performed in an oxygen flow in order to un derstand the decomposition mechanisms of the fabricated gels and to determi ne the synthesis temperature of the intermediate precursors for the HgBa2Ca Cu2O6+delta, HgBa2Ca2Cu3O8+delta, and Hg1-xTlxBa2Ca2Cu3O8+delta superconduc tors. The optimum annealing temperature for a desired oxygen content in the superconducting compounds has been established by thermogravimetric measur ements. To assist the interpretation of the obtained results the elemental analyses of the synthesized products were performed by AAS and EDS (SEM) me thods. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.