Low temperature penetration depth and the effect of quasi-particle scattering measured by millimeter wave transmission in YBa 2 Cu 3 O 7−δ thin films

Measurement of the penetration depth λ(T) as a function of temperature using millimeter wave transmission in the range 130-500GHz are reported for three YBa 2 (YBCO) laser ablated thin films. Two films, deposited on a LaAlO 3 substrate (T c =90.2 K), exhibit a narrow resistive transition (0.3 K). One has been subsequently irradiated with He + ions in order to increase the scattering rate of the quasi-particles (T c =87.8 K). The third film, grown on MgO (T c =88.5 K), exhibits also a fairly narrow transition (0.8 K) and a high crystalline quality. The experiment provides the absolute value λ(T≤ 30K) for the penetration depth at low temperature: the derivation from the transmission data and the experimental uncertainty are discussed. We find a zero temperature penetration depth λ 0 =1990 ± 200 Å, 2180 ± 200 Å and 2180 ± 200Å, for YBCO-500 Å/LaAlO 3 (pristine), YBCO-1300 Å/MgO and YBCO-500 Å/LaAlO 3 (irradiated) respectively. λ(T≤ 30 K) exhibits a different behavior for the three films. In the pristine sample, λ(T ≤ 30 K) shows a clear temperature and frequency dependence, namely the temperature dependence is consistent with a linear variation, whose slope decreases with frequency: this is considered as an evidence for the scattering rate being of the order of the measuring frequency. A two fluids analysis yields 1/τ (T ≤ 30 K) ~ 1.7 × 10 12 s -1 . In the two other samples, λ (T ≤ 30 K) does not display any frequency dependence, suggesting a significantly larger scattering rate. The temperature dependence is different in these latter samples. It is consistent with a linear variation for the YBCO/MgO sample, not for the YBCO/LaAlO 3 irradiated one, which exhibits a T 2 dependence up to 40 K. We have compared our data to the predictions of the d-wave model incorporating resonant scattering and we do not find a satisfactory agreement. However, the large value of λ 0 in the pristine sample is a puzzle and sheds some doubt on a straightforward comparison with the theory of data from thin films, if considered as dirty d-wave superconductors. Copyright EDP Sciences, Springer-Verlag 1998