EBSD analysis of melt-textured YBCO with embedded Ag-2411 nanoparticles

Nanoparticles of the type M-2411 (with M = U, Nb, Zr, Ag, etc.) can be embedded within the superconducting YBCO matrix to provide flux pinning sites. Among all these types of nanoparticles, the Ag-2411 particles are special in the sense that they may provide also metallic Ag particles to be formed within the superconductor. The addition of metallic Ag (or silver oxide) was shown to be a means to create a more stable system by filling cracks and voids. Using the advanced polishing method of the YBCO surfaces, we achieve a high EBSD image quality of the recorded Kikuchi patterns. In this contribution, we perform a four-phase EBSD analysis including YBa2Cu3Ox, Y2BaCuO5, Ag-2411 and metallic Ag. As a result, we find nanometer-sized Ag particles being distributed within the YBCO matrix, and a reduced amount of Ag-2411 particles as compared to the nominal composition. The Ag-2411 particles are well oriented with the surrounding YBCO matrix as found earlier, but the metallic silver particles as detected by EBSD do not exhibit a preferred orientation.