Orientation Analysis of Bulk YBCO from Incomplete Neutron Diffraction Data

Highly incomplete pole figures of a magnetic-field-aligned melt-textured superconducting sample of the Y-Ba-Cu-O system were measured by neutron diffraction. The orientation distribution of the main superconducting 123 and a minor 211 phase have been derived with the WIMV algorithm. The 123 phase is strongly textured with a (001) maximum around 22 times that of a random distribution (m.r.d.) and a texture index of 30. There are two orientation components present that have no apparent relationship with the applied magnetic field. The texture of the 211 phase is weak, with a maximum of 1.7 m.r.d. The textures of the two phases appear to be correlated.