Laser-induced voltage characteristics of Bi2Sr2Co2Oy thin films on LaAlO3 substrates

We report the laser-induced voltage (LIV) effects in c-axis oriented Bi2Sr2Co2Oy thin films grown on (0 0 1) LaAlO3 substrates with the title angle alpha of 0 degrees, 3 degrees, 5 degrees and 10 degrees by a simple chemical solution deposition method. A large open-circuit voltage with the sensitivity of 300 mV/mJ is observed for the film on 10 degrees tilting LaAlO3 under a 308 nm irradiation with the pulse duration of 25 ns. When the film surface is irradiated by a 355 nm pulsed laser of 25 ps duration, a fast response with the rise time of 700 ps and the full width at half maximum of 1.5 ns is achieved. In addition, the experimental results reveal that the amplitude of the voltage signal is approximately proportional to sin 2 alpha and the signal polarity is reversed when the film is irradiated from the substrate side rather than the film side, which suggests the LIV effects in Bi2Sr2Co2Oy thin films originate from the anisotropic Seebeck coefficient of this material. (C) 2010 Elsevier B. V. All rights reserved.