Feasibility of manufacturing large domain YBCO Levitators™ by using melt processing techniques

The fabrication of large domain Levitators™ by using Nd1+xBa2-xCu3Oy. single crystals as seeds for frictionless superconductor-magnet bearings has been reported earlier. In order to demonstrate the feasibility of large scale manufacturing of YBCO Levitators™, batch sizes of ≈ 90 samples were fabricated in a furnace. A distribution in levitation forces of the Levitators™ was observed. Possible factors responsible for this distribution and the feasibility of scale up are discussed in this paper.