Evaluation of the displacement energy of Gd atoms in GdBa2Cu3O7−δ from experimental data

Abstract The processing of experimental data on Gd-containing high-temperature superconductor degradation resulting from thermal neutron irradiation has made it possible to evaluate the ratio of the degradation rates of GdBa2Cu3O7−gd enriched with 155Gd and 157Gd isotopes respectively. The defect production in the compound due to (n, γ) reactions on Gd nuclei and consequent recoil of Gd nuclei emitting γ-quanta was simulated with experimentally determined γ-spectra by a Monte Carlo technique. The displacement probabilities pd(155) and pd(157) for different threshold energies Ed and the threshold energy of Gd atom displacement producing disordered bubbles in GdBa2Cu3O7−δ, E d ∗ ≈ 150 eV , we…