Studies on sintering of solid state synthesized Ba1−xKxBiO3−δ superconducting phase

Superconducting Ba1−xKxBiO3−δ pellets were synthesized by solid state reaction followed by sintering. Thermo-gravimetric and differential thermo-gravimetric analysis (TG–DTA) of the mixture of nitrates was carried out to study the reactions during the phase formation. The effect of different sintering temperatures on the phase formation was studied. The X-ray diffraction data confirms the formation of superconducting Ba0.6K0.4BiO2.23 phase at 700 °C. The surface morphological studies as a function of sintering temperature were studied by SEM. It is observed that the pellets prepared by solid state reaction followed its sintering at 700°C shows the superconducting transition at 26.8 K.