Oxide heterostructures were used for studies of quasiparticle injection effects in high-Tc superconducting thin films. The effect of injection of spin polarized quasiparticles from a ferromagnetic gate layer was compared to that of unpolarized quasiparticles from a nonmagnetic metallic gate. Transport measurements of the superconducting layer showed strong suppression in the supercurrent by the injection of spin-polarized quasiparticles, and a current gain of as large as five was attained. This is 10 to 30 times larger than the gain of unpolarized injection devices. Such large effects could be useful in a variety of active high-Tc superconductor/colossal magnetoresistance heterostructure based devices.

We show that dc voltage versus current measurements of a YBa(2)Cu(3)O(7-delta) film in a magnetic field can be collapsed onto scaling functions proposed by Fisher et al. [Phys. Rev. B 43, 130 (1991)] as is widely reported in the literature. We find, however, that good data collapse is achieved for a wide range of critical exponents and temperatures. These results strongly suggest that agreement with scaling alone does not prove the existence of a phase transition. We propose a criterion to determine if the data collapse is valid, and thus if a phase transition occurs. To our knowledge, none of the data reported in the literature meet our criterion.

Thin films of Ag-added La2/3Ca1/3MnO3 exhibit enhancement of several desirable characteristics over the pristine counterparts. We find that the addition of Ag results in a pronounced increase in the insulator–metal transition temperature (Tp) and ferromagnetic transition temperature (Tc). There is also a remarkable improvement in the magnetic and electrical homogeneity of the samples as indicated by narrower ferromagnetic resonance linewidths and narrower resistive transitions, respectively. The observed improvement in properties is inferred to be largely associated with improved oxygen stoichiometry of the films although microstructural effects are not ruled out.

A very large positive magnetoresistance (MR) has been discovered in a Fe3O4/SrTiO3/ La0.7Sr0.3MnO3 heterostructure for the transport perpendicular to the layer planes and applied magnetic field in the film plane. The observed MR features do not show any obvious correlation with the hysteresis behavior of the ferromagnetic bilayers. A possible explanation of these results is given in terms of the relative differences in the majority and minority spin bands of the two ferromagnetic layers and the field induced modifications of domain structures therein.

Microstructure and critical current densities of laser ablated YBa2Cu3O7−δ thin films doped with 2–20 wt. % Ag have been studied. A critical current density as high as 1.4×107 A cm−2 at 77 K has been realized on 〈100〉 SrTiO3 substrates with YBaCuO films doped with 5 wt. % Ag which has been found to be the optimum. Evidence indicates that the improved microstructure and epitaxy which is a consequence of grain enlargement and alignment caused by Ag is responsible for the high values of critical currents observed.