Artificial chessboard like textured YBCO films

A chessboard like structure of in-plane textured superconducting film with 4×4 um^2 elementary area has been fabricated by means of the homo-biepitaxial growing of YBCO film on yttria stabilized zirconia substrate. Regular arranged grain boundaries with fixed mismatch angle of 45° were realized. Each elemental square was connected to the four neighbouring regions by pi-Josephson junctions. Electro-physical properties of YBCO films with and without the chessboard like texture were measured. The magnetic field penetration into the chessboard like YBCO sample has been investigated by magneto-optical imaging at T=4.2K at different values of the applied magnetic field. The magneto-optical images have demonstrated the contribution of the grain-boundary superconducting transport to the formation of the magnetic field distribution inside the chessboard like sample.