Nanosuperconductor YBa2Cu3Oy

After 60 h grinding, a ground sample of YBa(2)Cu3O(y) was turned into agglomerates that were characterized as amorphous materials with a small number of crystals left. After subsequently keeping the agglomerates in air at room temperature for eight months, nanocrystals growing from the agglomerates were observed. These nanocrystals were pine-tree-fibered ceramic materials with a diameter of the order of dozens of nm and length of the order of hundreds of nm. By electron-diffraction analysis, the nanocrystal was determined to have an orthorhombic structure; magnetic measurements demonstrated that it was a nanosuperconductor with a 90-K superconducting phase. The appearance of this nanocrystal gives us an opportunity to fabricate superconducive nanomaterials. On the practical side, the fact that a superconducting nanocrystal of YBa2Cu3Oy is in the form of a fiber gives us the potential, by nanocrystal growth, to fabricate a real superconducting wire or fiber without any metal cube to wrap and hold it, like an optical fiber. Another practical potential for the nanosuperconductor in nanotechnologies is to use the nanocrystals in microcircuits as superconducting wires.