Deposition and patterning of epitaxial Y-Ba-Cu-O thin films on silicon with ZrO2 buffer layers

Abstract

Superconducting Y—Ba—Cu—O thin films are deposited on Si (100) substrates where an intermediate buffer layer of yttria stabilized zirconia is used to prevent interdiffusion and interfacial reactions. Both layers are grown epitaxially using the pulsed laser deposition technique. The films are patterned by two different schemes. One is the conventional photoresist masking combined with ion milling, the other is a type of selective epitaxy of the YBCO thin films on prepatterned YSZ layers on silicon substrates combined with the use of Si—Y—Ba—Cu—O intermixing during the in situ film growth process. In both cases the properties of the patterned YBCO films are nearly identical showing critical temperatures as high as 90K and critical transport currents exceeding 10 6 A/cm 2 at 77K.