Growth of epitaxial multilayers consisting of alternately stacked superconducting YBa₂Cu₃O_7-δ and colossal magnetoresistive La_1-xPb_xMnO₃ layers

Abstract

Epitaxial multilayers comprising of superconducting YBa₂Cu₃O_7-δ (YBCO) and colossal magnetoresistive La_1-xPb_xMnO₃ (LPMO) layers have been fabricated on (1 0 0) SrTiO₃ substrates using pulsed-laser ablation technique. For this purpose, we have optimized the growth parameters, namely substrate temperature and oxygen pressure, for the epitaxial growth of La_1-xPb_xMnO₃ films, so that both YBCO and LPMO layers could be in situ grown under identical conditions. The structural, morphological and magnetotransport properties of LPMO films are found to be greatly influenced by the growth temperature. An increase in c-lattice parameter and decrease in insulator-to-metal transition temperature with increasing growth temperature have been observed, which are found to be a consequence of the loss in Pb content at elevated temperatures. The grown YBCO/LPMO multilayers exhibited both superconducting as well as magnetoresistive properties.