Acoustic study of YBa2Cu3Ox thin films

The attenuation of surface acoustic waves by epitaxial YBa2Cu3Ox films has been studied for x 6 to 7. For fully oxygenated samples, the acoustic attenuation as a function of temperature shows two broad peaks at about 135 and 240 K, and decreases monotonically below the lower peak temperature. The cause of attenuation peaks is attributed to scattering by optical phonons. Our data do not show any gap structure at Tc due to relatively weak electron-phonon interactions at the acoustic frequencies. As the oxygen deficiency increases, the temperature dependence of the dc resistance changes from metallic to semiconducting and finally to insulating behavior. Acoustic attenuation data correspondingly show a drastic change due to different attenuation mechanisms: from the phonon scattering loss in the metallic regime to the electric-field coupling loss in the semiconducting and insulating regimes. In the latter regimes, the temperature dependence of low-frequency resistance calculated from the attenuation data can be fitted to a three-dimensional Mott variable-range-hopping model. © 1991 The American Physical Society.