Epitaxial growth and characterisation of artificial and superconducting superlattices deposited by PLD

Thin films and artificial materials deposition, applied to the study of hig h temperature superconductors, can be a powerful method to achieve better c omprehension of the conduction mechanisms in these materials and, in perspe ctive, to obtain new superconducting compounds. We simulate the layered str ucture of the superconducting oxides by alternating infinite layer compound s (CaCuO2, SrCuO2, BaCuO2) both pure and doped either with chemical substit utions or stoichiometry variations. By the first way, we obtained superlatt ices with a semiconducting electrical behaviour, probably because of the di sorder induced by such high chemical substitutions. The second way led to s uperconducting films with transition temperatures around 80 K and low aniso tropy. Furthermore, their artificial nature offers an unique possibility of analysing the influence of the structural properties on the superconductin g behaviour, such as the correlation between the number of CuO2 planes cont ained in the infinite layer block (CaCuO2) and the transport properties.