Electrosynthesis of HTSCs

The electrosynthesis of HTSCs began to develop somewhat later than most other approaches and at first could compete with the conventional methods only in specific applications. However, in the last two to three years, interest has grown in certain versions of HTSC electrosynthesis. The main limitation of electrosynthetic methods lies in the need to use conductive substrates or materials covered with thin conductive layers. The most significant potential advantage of all electrochemical methods consists in the possibility of accurately controlling the amount of the resulting product by on-line coulometry, the error of which does not exceed a few percent of the charge consumed in the formation of a monolayer. 

The problem of lateral modification of HTSC surface layers, and the local electrosynthesis of HTSCs on the surface of patterned substrates including the precursors is very interesting. Such processes can occur, for example, during electrooxidation of metals when the process in its initial stages takes place only on isolated microscopic regions. Thus, Josephon junctions on the surface of Bi-Sn alloys [222] and on ceramic YBCO samples [295,444] were obtained by using electrochemical oxidation without any special local techniques. But it is hard to control such oxidation processes, and sufficient reproducibility cannot be ensured for most systems. Josephson tunnel junctions based on electrochemically synthesized BKBO crystals have been described [445]. 

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