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Crystal structure of the 80 K superconductor YBa2Cu4O8

Abstract

Recently a new Y–Ba–Cu–O superconducting oxide has been prepared as a distinct phase in thin films1–3. The new phase was first seen as a defect structure in bulk samples of YBa2Cu3O7 (refs 4–7) and found to contain an additional copper layer7. The proposed defect structure has a c-axis spacing of 27 Å and a cation ratio of YBa2Cu4. Y–Ba–Cu–O films containing a majority phase with a 27 Å unit cell have been proposed as evidence of a distinct phase with the same structure as the defects (ref. 1 and K. Char et al., unpublished results). Films of the new phase superconduct with a transition temperature of 80 K (K. Char et al., unpublished results and refs 2 and 3). We show by X-ray crystallography of a film containing 85% of the new phase that the stoichiometry can be written as YBa2Cu4O8. The new structure differs from YBa2Cu3O7 in that the single, linear Cu–O chain parallel to the b-axis has been replaced by a double Cu–O chain with edge-sharing, square-planar oxygen coordination.

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Marsh, P., Fleming, R., Mandich, M. et al. Crystal structure of the 80 K superconductor YBa2Cu4O8. Nature 334, 141–143 (1988). https://doi.org/10.1038/334141a0

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