Growth of ultrathin YBaCuO films on (100) SrTiO3 and MgO substrates

High resolution Rutherford backscattering and x-ray diffraction were applied to study the initial growth phenomena of YBaCuO on (100) SiriO(3) and MgO substrates. For the studies ultrathin films with thicknesses in the range of 0.6 to 5 nm were deposited by inverted cylindrical magnetron sputtering. Both methods show that on SrTiO3 the growth of an additional unit cell block layer is initiated only after completion of the preceding one leading to strained pseudomorphic growth. On MgO island growth is observed with different coverage percentages on three unit cell layer levels appearing simultaneously.