Eur. Phys. J. B 42, 483-490 (2004)
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjb/e2005-00006-x

Epitaxial growth of solution deposited YBa₂Cu₃O_7-δ films

¹ Materials Science Center, University of Groningen, Nijenborgh 4, 9747 AG Groningen, The Netherlands
² Institut für Werkstoffwissenschaften und -technologien, Technische Universität Berlin, Englische Strasse 20, 10587 Berlin, Germany
³ Department of Physics, University of Cambridge, Madingley Road, CB3 0HE Cambridge, UK

Corresponding author: ^a us222@phy.cam.ac.uk

Received: 8 June 2004
Published online: 18 January 2005

Abstract

The solution deposition of YBa₂Cu₃O_7-δ (Y123) high temperature superconducting thin films was studied. The films were prepared from a polymer-containing precursor onto SrTiO₃ (001) and LaAlO₃ (001) substrates and mineralized at high temperatures. The process depended on details of the film preparation in a delicate fashion, resulting either in superconducting or non-superconducting thin films. To elucidate this difference in conductivity, scanning electron microscopy and several X-ray diffraction techniques were used to characterize the resulting Y123 layers. Both the morphology of the film and the percentage of non-superconducting minority components are likely to be the origin of the difference in the conductance behavior at low temperatures.