Electric field effect in superconductor-ferroelectric structures

Abstract

Electric field effect (the E-effect) in superconductors has been studied since 1960 when Glover and Sherill published their results on a shift of the critical temperature T(sub c) about 0.1 mK in Sn and In thin films under the action Off the field E=300 kV/cm. Stadler was the first to study the effect or spontaneous polarization of ferroelectric substrate on the electric properties of superconductors. He observed that the reversal of polarization of TGS substrate under action of external electric field in Sn-TGS structures induced the T(sub c) shift in Sn about 1.3 mK. Since in this case the effect is determined not by the electric field but by the spontaneous polarization, we may call this effect the P-effect. High-T(sub c) superconductors opened the new possibilities to study the E- and P-effects due to low charge carrier density, as compared to conventional superconductors, and to anomalously small coherence length. Experiments in this field began in many laboratories but a breakthrough was made where a shift in T(sub c) by 50 mK was observed in YBCO thin films. Much higher effects were observed in subsequent studies. The first experiments on the P-effect in high-T(sub c) superconductors were reported elsewhere. In this report we shall give a short description of study on the P-effect in high-T(sub c) superconductors.