Anisotropic in-plane properties of 10° and (103)/(013) YBCO films

Abstract There is much current interest in fabricating structures including microbridges and vortex flow devices from high T c thin films with high in-plane electrical anisotropy. Two types of film have been studied, films grown on 10° vicinally cut SrTiO 3 , and (013)/(103) oriented films grown on (110) SrTiO 3 substrates in a two-temperature growth process. The thin 10° films have a normal state anisotropy of 3.7 (100 K). The thin (013)/(103) films have a normal state anisotropy of 23 (100 K). We report wide ranging I–V data taken over a range of temperatures and applied magnetic fields for both the normal and superconducting states for these films. This data show that the anistropy is essentially unchanged through the ohmic regime of behaviour just below T c , but the anisotropy is enhanced in the lower temperature non-linear regime and in magnetic fields approaching 1 Tesla.