Study of normal state behaviour and microstructure in YBa2Cu3−xCoxOy system

Abstract

The effect of Co in the YBa2Cu3-xCoxOy (x = 0.0, 0.09, 0.15, 0.21, 0.30) system has been studied. It is found that the normal state resistive and magnetic properties change with the microstructure of the samples. The scanning electron microscopy (SEM) observations show that the morphology of the grains changes with Co concentration. Resistivity, a.c. susceptibility and X-ray diffraction (XRD) results are discussed together with SEM observations.