ABSTRACT
The conception of atomic layer-by-layer synthesis of an artificially ordered superlattice by sequentially depositing constituent elements is particularly interesting for high-Tc superconductors (HTSCs) because of their naturally layered crystal structures. The common structural feature of all HTSCs is the presence of Cu-O planes which are believed to be responsible for the strong anisotropy in superconducting properties as well as their basic pairing mechanism. In the Bi2Sr2Can_1CunOJC (BSCCO) family, the layered structures differ from one another in the number of consecutive Cu-0 planes within a half-unit cell (molecular layer from a Bi-O monolayer to the next Bi-O monolayer), which is denoted by n. For instance, the Bi2Sr2CaCu208 (2212) phase has pairs of Cu-O planes in successive cells. A consequence of this commonality is fairly good lattice matching in the basal (a-b) plane in the BSCCO family. This offers the possibility of growing epitaxial superlattices of two different BSCCO phases layer by layer using thin-film techniques.
