Systematic effects of carbon doping on the superconducting properties of Mg(B1-xCx)(2).

The upper critical field, H(c2), of Mg(B1-xCx)(2) has been measured in order to probe the maximum magnetic field range for superconductivity that can be attained by C doping. Carbon doped MgB2 filaments were prepared, and for carbon levels below 4% the transition temperatures are depressed by about 1 K/% C and H(c2)(T=0) rises by about 5 T/% C. This means that 3.

Superconductivity in dense MgB2 wires.

MgB2 becomes superconducting just below 40 K. Whereas porous polycrystalline samples of MgB2 can be synthesized from boron powders, in this Letter we demonstrate that dense wires of MgB2 can be prepared by exposing boron filaments to Mg vapor. The resulting wires have a diameter of 160 microm, are better than 80% dense, and manifest the full chi = -1/4pi shielding in the superconducting state.

Thermodynamic and transport properties of superconducting Mg10B2.

Transport and thermodynamic properties of a sintered pellet of the newly discovered MgB2 superconductor have been measured to determine the characteristic critical magnetic fields and critical current densities. Both resistive transition and magnetization data give similar values of the upper critical field, Hc2, with magnetization data giving dHc2/dT = 0.44 T/K at the transition temperature of Tc = 40.