Magnetization and magnetoresistvity measurements on [(BaCuO2)2/(CaCuO2)2]32 high TC superconducting superlattices,

Magnetic and electrical transport properties of artificially layered [(BaCuO2)(2)/(CaCuO2)(2)](N) superlattices grown by pulsed laser deposition have been investigated. It has been found that these superlattices have a metallic normal state resistivity with a transition temperature of about 74 K. The holes concentration, from Hall measurements, is as high as 0.55 carriers per unit cell. From magnetization measurements a critical current density of about 6 x 10(5) A cm(-2) was estimated at 10 K. Magnetoresistivity and magnetization decay allowed to measure the activation energy for the fluxons motion. The observed value is not far from that of YBa2Cu3O7-x especially at low temperatures. All these features show that the layer by layer pulsed laser deposition can be a viable technique for the synthesis of new artificially layered high temperature superconducting materials with interesting properties. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.