Quantitative Auger electron spectroscopy of superconducting YBaCuO single crystals and thin films

Abstract

Quantitative Auger electron spectroscopy (AES) measurements of stoichiometric YBa 2Cu 3O 7 single-crystal superconductors have been performed to determine the relative elemental Auger sensitivity factors used for internal standards. This quantitative method was applied to investigate the compositional structures of YBa 2Cu 3O 7− x thin films sputtered onto (100)-oriented SrTiO 3, MgO, and Al 2O 3 substrate materials. For YBa 2Cu 3O 7− x films with these typical substrates the resulting stoichiometric structur and epitaxial growth behaviour are fairly different. Interdiffusion effects at the superconductor-substrate interfaces observed by application of an AES depth profiling technique are remarkable for YBa 2Cu 3O 7− x films sputtered onto Al 2O 3 substrates. The experimental results presented here demonstrate that AES can be a very useful method in the quantitative analysis study of high- T c superconductors.