A New Growth Technique of Ca-Free Y1Ba2Cu3Ox Single-Crystal Whiskers Using Antimony-Doped Precursors.

Single-crystal whiskers of Y1Ba2Cu3Ox with a length of about 4 mm were grown from an Sb-doped pre- cursor. The optimum nominal composition of precursors in this Sb-doping method is Y2Ba2.75Cu3Sb0.5Ox. Sb is not detected in the whiskers by energy-dispersive x-ray spectroscopy (EDS). The standard 4-probe transport measurements for the as-grown whiskers show a critical temperature Tc of about 90 K and a c-axis critical current density Jc of 9.51 × 104 A/cm² at 89 K. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]