Superior MgB2 Superconducting Wire Performance through Oxygen-Free Pyrene Additive.

There is great potential to further enhance the critical current density (J_c) performance of MgB₂ wires. Herein, MgB₂ wires were fabricated by using oxygen-free pyrene as dopant, and field and temperature dependences of J_c were systematically evaluated. In addition, a strong correlation among sintering temperature, structural parameters, microstructure, and superconducting performance was established. High lattice distortion was obtained by using pyrene as an additive as well as by using a low-temperature sintering process. This arises from vacancy formation, as confirmed by first-principles calculations. The microscopic defects introduce impurity scattering, resulting in the enhancement of the irreversibility field and J_c. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]