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The Synthesis and Characterization of YBa2Cu3O7-x Superconductor Added
with Gd2O3 (0.0, 0.3, 0.7 wt %) Nanoparticles
Aliah Nursyahirah binti Kamarudin
Supervisor: Dr. Aima binti Ramli
Bachelor of Applied Science (Electronics and Instrumentation Physics)
School of Ocean Engineering
Superconductor is a material that showed a superconductivity phenomenon of
electrical conductivity with zero resistance. Yttrium barium copper oxide (YBa2Cu3O7-
x) is a group of crystalline chemical compound and famous for displaying high
temperature superconductivity. In this research, YBa2Cu3O7-x samples with addition of
Gd2O3 nanoparticles were synthesized via solid state reaction method.Then, the
samples were characterized by X-ray Diffraction (XRD) analysis and Scanning Electron
Microscope (SEM). The phase formation of the samples were found to be
predominantly single phase perovskite structure Y-123 with orthorhombic and
secondary phase Y-211 and impurities Gd2O3 are well distributed. SEM revealed that
the average grain sizes calculated from image J decreased and samples become more
porous as the addition of Gd2O3 nanoparticles increased. Therefore, the growth of
YBa2Cu3O7-x grains had been limited as the addition of Gd2O3 increased due to the
weak links and poor connectivity thus resulting in degradation of superconducting
properties of the samples.
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