Specific heat of high temperature superconductors: Apparatus and measurements

An apparatus has been designed and constructed capable of measuring the specific heat from 0.6 K to 130 K using a variety of specific-heat techniques in magnetic fields as high as 9 T. The apparatus contains a temperature-controlled block with reference thermometers shielded from the magnetic field to allow precise calibrations of the working thermometers in a magnetic field. Currently, the apparatus is configured for specific-heat measurements on 1 to 3 g samples using the semi-adiabatic pulse and continuous heating methods. Specific-heat results on copper show the accuracy of the measurements to be better than ;The specific heat has been measured on the high-temperature superconductors...