Deposition of (Ba,La)CuO2/CaCuO2 superconducting multilayers by pulsed laser ablation

Superconducting multilayers, whose growth and structure are determined by the kinetic deposition instead by thermodynamics, are a powerful tool for investigating high T-c superconductors (HTSC) properties. By means of Pulsed Laser Deposition (PLD), we grew such materials alternating infinite layer phases both pure and doped, to supply CuO2 planes and charge reservoir (CR) blocks respectively. We found out that using chemically doped CR leads to a semiconducting behavior, whereas oxygen doping seems to be much more effective, since the BaCuO2 infinite phase, grown in high oxygen partial pressure, does actually bring about a superconducting behavior. We deposited BaCuO2/CaCuO2, superlattices with various periodicities and studied their transport and structural properties. By varying the deposition parameters, we reached both kinetic and thermodynamic growth and we observed semiconducting and superconducting behaviors