Magnetic shielding in MgB2/Fe superconducting wires

Transport critical current (I/sub c/) was measured for MgB/sub 2//Fe round wires, with the magnetic field oriented perpendicular to the wire and parallel to it. Measurements were made on a wire with a pure MgB/sub 2/ core and another wire where the MgB/sub 2/ core was doped with nano-size SiC. This doping strongly improved the vortex pinning in MgB/sub 2/. The field dependence of I/sub c/ was strongly improved due to the presence of the iron sheath. At 30 K, I/sub c/ did not depend on the field for fields between 0.09 and 0.7 T. At lower temperatures, I/sub c/ increased with the field, after an initial decrease, resembling a "peak effect." This effect was extended to higher fields as the temperature was decreased: at 10 K the peak appeared at 3.5 T. This improvement was not due to mere magnetic shielding by iron, but more likely to an interaction between the iron sheath and the superconductor. Improvement of vortex pinning did not affect the range of fields within which this effect was observed. J/sub c/ of SiC doped MgB/sub 2//Fe wires at elevated fields already satisfies the requirements for their use in production of superconducting magnets for particle accelerators.