Y. Bugoslavsky et al., Enhancement of the high-magnetic field critical current density of superconducting MgB2 by proton irradiation, NATURE, 411(6837), 2001, pp. 561-563
Magnesium diboride, MgB2, has a relatively high superconducting transition
temperature(1), placing it between the families of low- and high-temperatur
e (copper oxide based) superconductors. Supercurrent flow in MgB2 is unhind
ered by grain boundaries(2,3), making it potentially attractive for technol
ogical applications in the temperature range 20-30 K. But in the bulk mater
ial, the critical current density (J(c)) drops rapidly with increasing magn
etic field strength(4). The magnitude and field dependence of the critical
current are related to the presence of structural defects that can 'pin' th
e quantized magnetic vortices that permeate the material, and a lack of nat
ural defects in MgB2 may be responsible for the rapid decline of J(c) with
increasing field strength(3). Here we show that modest levels of atomic dis
order induced by proton irradiation enhance the pinning of vortices, thereb
y significantly increasing J(c) at high field strengths. We anticipate that
either chemical doping or mechanical processing should generate similar le
vels of disorder, and so achieve performance that is technologically attrac
tive in an economically viable way.