HIP synthesized Nb/sub 3/Sn bulk materials with extraordinary homogeneity
The authors present a simple powder metallurgical approach to synthesizing Nb/sub 3/Sn bulk materials by heat treatment under hot isostatic pressure (HIP) conditions that yields very homogeneous and fully densified large Nb/sub 3/Sn samples. The total width of the superconducting transition obtained from a specific heat measurement was only 0.4 K, corresponding to a variation of the Sn content of less than +or-0.1 at.% over the macroscopic sample size. The physical and superconducting properties of such samples are characterized, and possible application of the resulting materials are given.<<ETX>>