Influence of irradiated target modification on the quality of pulsed laser deposited YBa2Cu3O7−x thin films

YBa2Cu3O7−x thin films were deposited by pulsed laser deposition (PLD) using differently preablated targets. The effect of the total number of laser pulses on the morphology and composition of the YBa2Cu3O7−x target was investigated and the induced modification of the irradiated surface was found to affect the characteristics of the produced films. It is shown that both the particle density and the particle size in the prepared c-axis oriented films have been greatly reduced using a target preablated with a low number of pulses. The optimum conditions for the preparation of high quality YBa2Cu3O7−x thin films with reduced particles and high critical current density are established.