Research Profile - Department of Materials Science and Metallurgy ...

Stuart Wimbush
Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellow
MPhys University of Salford, UK
PhD TU Dresden, Germany
+44 (0)1223 767140
scw42@cam.ac.uk
www.msm.cam.ac.uk/dmg/
Superconducting Materials
As a member of the Device Materials Group, I am concerned
with the pulsed-laser deposition of thin films of high-temperature
superconducting materials and the investigation of their
properties. My work seeks to bring these materials of the future
closer to application through the development of new approaches
and techniques to enhance their electrical performance and
structural properties.
Practical approaches to enhancing critical
current by magnetic pinning
The primary focus of my work is currently the development of
practical, industrially relevant processes for enhancing the current
carrying capability of the second generation high-temperature
superconductor material YBCO by the incorporation of magnetic
‘defects’ into its crystal structure. Only by achieving first control
and then optimization of these dopant materials and their
behaviour within the superconductor matrix can the full potential
of these materials be realised.
Biomimetic approaches to superconductor
synthesis
In collaboration with researchers at the University of Bristol,
I investigate novel biotemplating techniques for the chemical
synthesis of superconducting phases. By means of these natureinspired
processes, we are able to relax some of the extreme
conditions generally required for synthesis of these materials,
as well as to achieve improvements in their electrical and
mechanical properties.
Novel superconducting materials
As new superconductors are proposed or discovered, I apply
the processing techniques at my disposal in the attempt to
synthesize these novel phases.
SC Wimbush, MC Li, ME Vickers, B Maiorov, DM Feldmann, QX Jia & JL
MacManus-Driscoll, “Interfacial strain-induced oxygen disorder as the
cause of enhanced critical current density in superconducting thin films”
Adv. Funct. Mater. (2008) submitted.
ZAC Schnepp, SC Wimbush, S Mann & SR Hall, “Structural evolution of
superconductor nanowires in biopolymer gels” Adv. Mater. 20, 1782–1786,
(2008)
T Kolodiazhnyi & SC Wimbush, “Spin singlet small bipolarons in Nb-doped
BaTiO 3
” Phys. Rev. Lett., 96, 246404, (2006).
Atomic-force microscopy image of the surface of a YBCO thin
film revealing monolayer growth steps and a dispersion of ~10 nm
flux-pinning precipitates
38 Research Profile