Influence of low temperature neutron irradiation on the superconducting properties of V3Ga multifilamentary wires

The influence of low temperature neutron irradiation on multifilamentary wires of V3Ga has been investigated. The critical field HC2was measured as a function of temperature in the range of fields 0 to 8 Teslas before, after irradiation and after annealing at room temperature ; so was the critical current IC(H,T) on the temperature range 4.2 K to TC. The low field part of the curve HC2(T) measured in all cases allowed the determination of the Maki parameter and an extrapolation of this curve was done using the Werthamer formula. A decrease of critical current was found, amounting to about 30 % at 4.2 K for the largest irradition dose, 3×10¹⁸n/cm². The samples were sensitive to room temperature annealing. A plot of the pinning force versus reduced field shows that the samples do not obey a scaling law, except near TC.