Artificially layered films of CuBa2 (Ca1-xSrx)n-1CunOy grown using pulsed laser deposition

We have shown that the pulsed laser deposition technique (PLD) can be successfully used to grow artificially layered films of the CuBa2(Ca1-xSrx)(n-1)CunOy compound using only two targets having nominal composition BaCuOy and (Ca1-xSrx)CuOy, respectively. n was varied between 2 and 5. We have demonstrated, by a kinematic analysis of the x-ray diffraction spectra that the average random discrete thickness fluctuations which affect both the BaCuOy and (Ca1-xSrx)CuOy layers are much smaller than one atomic layer. Such features are confirmed by the appearance of sharp peaks even for the n=2 artificially layered structure where only one (Ca1-xSrx)CuOy cell is deposited in the stacking sequence. These results show that truly new structures can be obtained by a layer by layer deposition technique with a low interfacial disorder and give strong support to the idea of synthesizing new artificial high T-c structures by the PLD technique.