Electrical properties of electron and ion beam irradiated YBa/sub 2/Cu/sub 3/O/sub 7-/spl delta//

An electron beam with sufficient energy can be used to create a high quality Josephson junction in a single layer of YBa/sub 2/Cu/sub 3/O/sub 7-/spl delta//. The number of junctions thus produced is severely limited by the serial nature of the technique. An alternative method to create similar high quality Josephson junctions without such a serious throughput limitation is possibly the combination of high resolution masking and ion irradiation. For this reason we have studied the electrical properties of both electron and proton irradiated YBa/sub 2/Cu/sub 3/O/sub 7-/spl delta// in some detail. It was found that the resistivity of electron beam irradiated barriers of intermediate length (200 nm) are strongly influenced by a proximity effect when the irradiated material has a finite T/sub c/. At higher electron doses the superconducting properties are fully suppressed and the electrical behaviour is dominated by a Variable Range Hopping mechanism.