Radiation damage of thin films of YBa2Cu3O7 superconductors

The effect of ion-beam irradiation of YBa2Cu3O7 superconductors has been studied by Raman spectroscopy. The ion beams 4He, 16O and 127I have been used eat energies 4, 25 and 200 MeV, respectively, in an attempt to investigate the radi- ation damage with respect to the mass of the bombarding ions, further, different doses of irradiation have been tried for each ion beam in order to investigate at which critical dose the phase transition from crystalline to amorphous and the loss of superconductivity occur.