abstract
Structure, orientational features, and twinning of epitaxial superconductive YBa2Cu3Ox (YBCO) thin films and YBCO/CeO2 heterostructures on (1 1 0) NdGaO3 (NGO) and tilted-axes NdGaO3 substrates with an inclination of normal of the substrate from the [1 1 0] axis were investigated by X-ray diffraction methods. Orthorhombic structure of NdGaO3 results in an increase of the angle between (1 1 0) and (1 (1) under bar 0) twinning planes in YBCO films to 90.20 degrees and in a difference in volume of two twin domain systems. The orientation of epitaxial YBCO thin films was shown to be influenced by the deposition rate and the presence of symmetrical-equivalent directions [1 1 0] and [1 (1) under bar 0] in the substrate and [1 0 0], [0 1 0], and [0 0 1] in the CeO2 layer. Domain structure of the YBCO thin film changes with an increase in the inclination angle. The YBCO thin films on the tilted-axes substrates are twinned in the same way as on (1 1 0) NGO substrates. However, formation of one or both twinning complexes is suppressed with an increase of the inclination angle. (C) 2004 Elsevier B. V. All rights reserved.
subject category
Crystallography; Materials Science; Physics
authors
Bdikin, IK; Mozhaev, PB; Mozhaeva, YE; Ovsyannikov, GA; Komissinski, PV; Kotelyanskii, IM; Kholkin, AL
our authors
acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank I. V. Borisenko, O.G. Rybchenko for help with the experiments and Yu. Boikov, T. Claeson, Z. Ivanov, E. Stepantsov for fruitful discussions. This study was supported by INTAS (Grant no. 2001-0249).