Deposition of superconducting CeCoIn5 thin films by co-sputtering and evaporation

Thin superconducting films of CeCoIn5 were prepared in situ by simultaneous thermal evaporation of indium and dc magnetic field assisted sputtering of planar metallic Ce and Co targets. To achieve an effective sputtering of the magnetic Co target a special geometry with two facing planar targets (Ce and Co) and magnetic field perpendicular to the targets was used. The stoichiometric (001)-oriented CeCoIn5 films were grown on r-cut sapphire substrates with a high-rate of 100 nm/min. The temperature dependence of the electrical resistivity revealed the characteristic heavy-fermion behavior and a superconducting transition at about 2 K in agreement with the literature data for CeCoIn5 bulk material and thin films. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.