Highly effective and isotropic pinning in epitaxial Fe(Se,Te) thin films grown on CaF2 substrates

We report on the isotropic pinning obtained in epitaxial Fe(Se,Te) thin films grown on CaF2(001) substrate. High critical current density values - larger than 1 MA/cm2 in self field and liquid helium - are reached together with a very weak dependence on the magnetic field and a complete isotropy. Analysis through transmission electron microscopy evidences the presence of defects looking like lattice disorder at a very small scale, between 5 and 20 nm, which are thought to be responsible for such isotropic behavior in contrast to what was observed on SrTiO3, where defects parallel to the c-axis enhance pinning in that direction. © 2013 AIP Publishing LLC.