Pulsed laser deposition for in-situ photoemission studies on YBa2Cu3O7-delta and related oxide films

We describe a new pulsed laser deposition (PLD) system that is linked to an angle-resolved photoemission (ARPES) chamber at the Synchrotron Radiation Center (SRC) in Wisconsin, USA. We also discuss our first results on epitaxially grown YBa2Cu3O7-delta (YBCO) films. The core level photoemission data indicate that a Be-oxide layer is the dominant surface layer. We were not able to reproducibly detect a sharp fermi edge in the photoemission spectra and thus conclude that the surface layer is non-metallic, probably due to oxygen loss at the surface. The absence of screening of the Y and Ba core levels is a further argument for this conclusion. Further experiments with ozone treated film surfaces are currently under way.