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A thin film of the superconductor YNi2B2C deposited on an MgO(001) substrate by pulsed laser deposition has been investigated by transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Plan-view TEM analyses show that the YNi2B2C film consists of isolated rectangular grains distributed within a second phase. This phase was identified as the monoclinic phase Y2Ni15B6 with lattice parameters a=1.422 nm,b=1.067 nm,c=0.958 nm and β=95°. Additionally, the cubic phase Y2O3 with lattice constant a=1.06 nm was identified within the film. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pulsed laser deposition from elemental targets was used to prepare highly textured hard magnetic Nd–Fe–B and Fe–Pt films with coercivities of 2 T and 5.2 T, respectively. In situ methods such as reflection high energy electron diffraction and Auger electron spectroscopy were applied to analyse film composition and structure during growth. Optimisation of the hard magnetic properties is discussed together with the specific advantages of pulsed laser deposition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The possibility of p-wave pairing in superconductors has been proposed more than five decades ago, but has not yet been convincingly demonstrated. One difficulty is that some p-wave states are thermodynamically indistinguishable from s-wave, while others are very similar to d-wave states. Here we studied the self-field critical current of NdFeAs(O,F) thin films in order to extract absolute values of the London penetration depth, the superconducting energy gap, and the relative jump in specific heat at the superconducting transition temperature, and find that all the deduced physical parameters strongly indicate that NdFeAs(O,F) is a bulk p-wave superconductor. Further investigation revealed that single atomic layer FeSe also shows p-wave pairing. In an attempt to generalize these findings, we re-examined the whole inventory of superfluid density measurements in iron-based superconductors and show quite generally that single-band weak-coupling p-wave superconductivity is exhibited in iron-based superconductors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]