Observation of Crystal Growth of Superconductive Material

Our life is expected to change a great deal in the future by actual use of superconductor technology such as the linear motor car.
In the research of superconductor today, development of high temperature superconductive material is being promoted actively. Actual use of conventional metal family superconductive material has not been realized due to the fact that the material had to be cooled by expensive liquid helium (-269℃). On the other hand, as the critical temperature of the ceramic family superconductive material is higher than the boiling point of the low cost liquid nitrogen (-196℃), it is called the high temperature superconductive material.
YBa₂Ca₃O₇, Which is one of the high temperature superconductive material, grows in the high temperature oven of 980℃∼1000℃. As there is abundant emitting light in such a high temperature environment, it is difficult to observe inside the oven with normal visible light. Therefore, TVS is observing the growing crystal in Fig.2 in real-time by the experimental set up as shown in Fig.1.
As a result of this experiment, it was learned that the crystal of YBa₂Ca₃O₇ grows in a square shape as shown in the thermal image of Photo 1.