Polycrystalline MgB2 superconducting pellets were bombarded with 50MeV Li3+ ions to various fluences. All of the samples were characterized by X-ray diffraction pattern and the lattice parameters for samples were obtained using Rietveld refinement. The resistivity measurements were done on both irradiated and unirradiated samples. There was no significant change in TC; even for the highest fluence of 2 x 1015/cm2 (at about 0.3K). Insignificant change in TC indicated that MgB2 was insensitive to radiation. Detailed analysis of the resistivity data was done using the Bloch–Grüneisen function to extract the Debye temperature, electron–phonon coupling constants for the irradiated as well as unirradiated samples.

Effect of 50MeV Li3+ Ion Irradiation on Polycrystalline MgB2 Superconductor. A.Talapatra, S.K.Bandyopadhyay, P.Sen, R.Kumar, P.Mukherjee, P.Barat: Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research B, 2006, 244[1], 261-3