D.c. critical currents in granular sintered superconducting ceramics

✍ Scribed by R. Riedinger

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1990
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 307 KB
• Volume: 30
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0011-2275
• DOI: 10.1016/0011-2275(90)90179-g

✦ Synopsis

Intergrain weak link coupling limits the superconducting critical current at zero voltage and thus electric power transportation. A classical model has been developed independently by Rhyner and Blatter and the present author which neglects phase fluctuations of the superconducting order parameter between grains and models the weak links as Josephson junctions, each possessing a limiting critical current. Rhyner and Blatter solved this problem on two-dimensional lattices using a transfer matrix method or simplex algorithm, and applied it to texturing. The present author has shown that the problem can be efficiently solved using an adaptation of the maximal flow theorem of Ford and Fulkerson, well known in economics. The minimal cut, i.e. limitation of the current by a critical hypersurface, can be derived directly from this. New results on two-and three-dimensional networks are presented in this paper.