STM study of high temperature superconducting thin films

High temperature superconducting thin films have been deposited using the pulsed laser deposition method onto SrTiO3 single crystalline substrates. The substrate temperature was kept at 750°C and the deposited film thickness was 200nm (sample provided by University of Basel).

From the STM experiment, typical defect mediated spiral growth hills can be observed. The step height of the growth hills correspond to the unit cell of the superconductor material YBa2Cu3O7 of 1.2nm. The tunneling parameters were -1nA tunneling current and -0.8V gap voltage.

For reference see also Gerber et al. Nature 350 (1991) 279