Slivers of Flowerpots: Preparing the Surface of Single Crystal High Temperature Superconductors using the Ultracut

Betsy Pugel

Graduate Research Assistant

Department of Physics

UIUC

6 April 2000

Tunneling spectroscopy measurements of the density of states in superconductors provide insight into the mechanism of high temperature superconductivity and the nature of superconducting interfaces. High temperature superconductors are strongly anisotropic, that is, their properties are different in different directions.  Thus, making measurements on samples whose surfaces have different crystallographic orientations allows us to probe this anisotropy. I'll discuss our use of the Ultracut on single crystal high temperature superconductors to expose certain crystallographic planes, with application to tunneling spectroscopy measurements.