Excimer laser annealing of HTS surface

Irradiation of Kr-F excimer laser onto the BSCCO calcined pellets changed t heir surface to be amorphous. SEM micrographs showed that sintering of the irradiated pellets recrystallized the surface layer and much reduced the in tergrain gaps as compared with only sintered pellets, whereas the internal structure of the irradiated pellets remained unchanged. On increasing the e lectric current for the four-terminal measurement, the critical temperature of the excimer laser irradiated and then conventionally sintered pellets l ess decreased than that of the only sintered pellets. We can say that the n ew processing improves grain junctions of the pellets. (C) 2001 Elsevier Sc ience B.V. All rights reserved.