The grain-boundary misorientation distribution in the bulk processed material was studied as a function of the processing conditions. The deviation of the grain boundary misorientation distribution from a random distribution was tested using a χ2 analysis, and a grain-boundary character-distribution which was based upon the coincidence-site lattice model was developed. The grain boundary misorientation distribution and the grain-boundary character-distribution both exhibited departures from a random distribution for processing temperatures above 935C. The grain-boundary character-distribution analysis suggested an increase in the population of coincidence-site lattice-related boundaries with annealing time and temperature. In particular, the population of boundaries which was related to coincidence-site lattices for a crystal with c/a > 3 continued to increase with annealing, while the population of boundaries which were related to other coincidence-site lattices (c/a = 3) remained essentially constant. A comparison of the grain-boundary character-distribution with the volume-averaged critical current density for each processing condition indicated that an increasing proportion of c/a > 3 boundaries was related to a reduction in the critical current density.

On the Correlation of Grain Boundary Misorientation Distribution with Critical Current in Bulk Processed YBa2Cu3O7-δ. J.Y.Wang, A.H.King, Y.Zhu, Y.L.Wang, M.Suenaga: Philosophical Magazine A, 1998, 78[5], 1037-49