Pulsed laser deposition of YBCO and NBCO using experimental design

Thin films of YBa2Cu3O7-x (YBCO) and NdBa2Cu3O7-x, (NBCO) were grown by pul sed laser deposition (PLD). The experiment was planned using experimental d esign to investigate the relative importance of the individual growth param eters for the properties of the films. For both materials critical temperat ures close to 90K were obtained. The electrical and morphological propertie s of the films were correlated to the growth conditions using regression an alysis. For NBCO, regions where both electrical and morphological propertie s were optimised could be found, while for YBCO we found that the main fact ors that lead to high critical temperatures also lead to a substantial incr ease in the surface roughness.