Abstract
Electron microscopy investigations at 120 K utilizing microdiffraction and selected area diffraction on isolated single-crystal grains of the orthorhombic phase of YBa2Cu3O7-x reveal local variations in aa. Here aa is the percentage difference between the a and b dimensions of the orthorhombic structure. The microscopic values of aa vary from zero to more than twice the macroscopic value over typical spatial dimensions of 1000. The results are consistent with the sample being in the spinodal decomposition region as predicted by Khachaturyan et al. We show an approximate linear relationship between macroscopic values of aa and Tc and use this to argue that appropriate processing may be able to raise Tc to 220 K.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 9373-9381 |
| Number of pages | 9 |
| Journal | Physical Review B |
| Volume | 37 |
| Issue number | 16 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - 1988 |
| Externally published | Yes |