Types of defect ordering in undoped and lanthanum-doped Bi2201 single crystals

Undoped and lanthanum-doped Bi2201 single crystals having a perfect average structure have been comparatively studied by x-ray diffraction. The undoped Bi2201 single crystals exhibit very narrow satellite reflections; their half-width is five to six times smaller than that of Bi2212 single crystals grown by the same technique. This narrowness indicates three-dimensional defect ordering in the former crystals. The lanthanumdoped Bi2201 single crystals with x = 0.7 and T _c = 8–10 K exhibit very broad satellite reflections consisting of two systems (modulations) misoriented with respect to each other. The modulation-vector components of these two modulations are found to be q ₁ = 0.237b* + 0.277c* and q ₂ = 0.238b* + 0.037c*. The single crystals having a perfect average structure and a homogeneous average distribution of doping lanthanum consist of 70-to 80-Å-thick layers that alternate along the c axis and have two different types of modulated superlattice. The crystals having a less perfect average structure also consist of alternating layers, but they have different lanthanum concentrations. The low value of T _c in the undoped Bi2201 single crystals (9.5 K) correlates with three-dimensional defect ordering in them, and an increase in T _c to 33 K upon lanthanum doping can be related to a thin-layer structure of these crystals and to partial substitution of lanthanum for the bismuth positions.