Transport characterization of silicon-YBCO buffered multilayers deposited by magnetron sputtering

The paper reports on results concerning the Si/YSZ/CeO/sub 2//YBCO multilayer prepared by means of magnetron sputtering. Such multilayer is considered for the possibility to compound the integration of YBCO films with silicon-based devices, with the unique, in perspective, properties of YBCO concerning photon sensors. We characterized YBCO films in such multilayer configuration by means of structural and dc transport measurements. It turns out that some granularity affects the transport properties of the YBCO film and lowers the critical currents. However, the lower temperature E-J characteristics are sharp enough to consider exploiting the transition between under critical and over critical (flux flow) state for future silicon-integrated broad-band photon sensors.