Growth behavior of YBCO films on STO substrates with ZnO nanorods

The influence of nanorods grown on substrate prior to YBCO deposition has been investigated. We studied the microstructures and characteristic of $YBa_2Cu_3O_{7-\delta}$ films fabricated on $SrTiO_3$ (100) substrates with ZnO nanorods as one of the possible pinning centers. The growth density of ZnO nanorods was modulated through Au nanoparticles synthesized on top of the STO(100) substrates with self assembled monolayer. The density of Au nanoparticles is approximately $240{\sim}260\;{\mu}m^{-2}$ with diameters of 41~49 nm. ZnO nanorods were grown on Au nanoparticles by hot-walled PLD with Au nanoparticles. Typical size of ZnO nanorod was around 179 nm in diameter and $2{\sim}6\;{\mu}m$ in length respectively. The ZnO nanorods have apparently randomly aligned and exhibit single-crystal nature along (0002) growth direction. Our preliminary results indicate that YBCO film deposited directly on STO substrate shows the c-axis orientation while YBCO films with ZnO nanorods exhibit any mixed phases without any typical crystal orientation.