Large area superconducting YBa2Cu3O7-x films grown by single target ion beam sputtering

The authors have demonstrated, by using a simple single YBa2Cu3O7-x target ion beam system that, with a sufficiently low power ion beam, preferential sputtering is avoided and high-quality YBa2Cu3O7-x films are deposited over areas larger than ≈30 cm2 in a reproducible way. As-deposited films on 〈100〉SrTiO3 are 50-100 nm thick, c-oriented and show the following reproducible electrical properties (within the given variations): Tc0=90±0.5 K, transitions widths less than 1 K, jc(77 K)=1.0-1.2×106 A cm-2, ρ(300 K)=300±50 μΩ cm, ρ(300 K)/ρ(100 K)=2.9±0.1. The extrapolated residual resistivity ρres(0 K) is between 0 and 5% of ρ(300 K)