Artificial pinning centres in YBCO thin films induced by substrate decoration with gas-phase-prepared Y₂O₃nanoparticles

Abstract

Y2O3 nanoparticles prepared by an inert gas phase condensation process were used to introduce artificial pinning centres in YBa2Cu3O7−δ thin films. The areal density of the particles was varied between 120 and 4200 particles µm−2 without changing the mean particle diameter of approximately 9 nm. Y2O3 particles were deposited on TiO2 terminated SrTiO3 (100) single-crystal substrates with areal densities up to 1654 particles µm−2 and subsequently covered with YBa2Cu3O7−δ by off-axis pulsed laser deposition (PLD). The areal density of the room temperature deposited particles is not changed by the substrate heating during PLD although their height on the substrate decreases. An influence on Jc is demonstrated for particle densities above 1588 particles µm−2, indicating that the substrate decoration with Y2O3 nanoparticles from the gas phase affects the formation of artificial pinning centres in the YBa2Cu3O7−δ films and can be applied to further study of the effect of particle size and areal density on defect formation in YBa2Cu3O7−δ.

Strong correlated pinning at high growth rates in YBa2Cu3O7−x thin films with Ba2YNbO6 additions

“…Similar nanoscale phases embedded in the YBCO matrix can also be obtained using chemical solution deposition. 9 Artificial pinning centres can also be induced via the substrate decoration technique 10 or quasi multilayer deposition. 6,11,12 Recently, we showed that the introduction of Ba 2 YNbO 6 (BYNO) additions into YBCO films grown by pulsed laser deposition (PLD) at a rate of 5 Hz at 770 C resulted in the formation of nanocolumns of $10 nm in diameter aligned with the c-axis of the YBCO.…”

Systematic study of BaSnO3 doped YBa2Cu3O7−x films

“…Several nano-engineering techniques were recently developed to insert and control APCs and, as a consequence of this, the transport performances of YBCO and REBCO films were dramatically enhanced. Many research groups were involved in the challenge of increasing the performance of coated conductors (CC) by APCs, and a lot of papers were published on this topic so far [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21].…”

Characterization of Complex Spintronic and Superconducting Structures by Atomic Force Microscopy Techniques

“…Several ways of externally inducing normal regions in superconductors have been demonstrated. They include: irradiation by swift heavy ions, artificially introduced regular arrays of holes, artificially introduced nanoparticles that create columnar defects in superconducting films, or surface decoration of the substrate upon which the superconducting film is grown (Civale et al, 1991;Augieri et al, 2010;Mele et al,2006;Sparing et al, 2007). However, classic nonmagnetic pinning becomes ineffective at high temperatures making it difficult to imagine practical applications of HTS materials.…”