%0 Journal Article %J Physical Review B %D 1991 %T Site-selective oxygen-isotope substitution in YBa2Cu3O7−δ %A Morris, D. E. %A Markelz, A. G. %A Wei, J. Y. T. %A Huitgren, C. T. %A Nickel, J. H. %A Hamilton, J. C. %A McCarty, K. F. %X

We report selective substitution of oxygen-18 and oxygen-16 isotopes into the inequivalent oxygen lattice sites in YBa2Cu3O7δ. The technique involves gas-phase diffusion and exploits the site dependence of diffusion rates. The CuO2-plane [O(2),O(3)] sites of YBa2Cu3O7δ can be filled with 18O while the apical [O(4)] and CuO-chain sites [O(1)] contain 16O (the opposite distribution can also be made). The site-selective isotope occupation has been confirmed by Raman spectroscopy. Our method will permit experiments to determine the contributions of the different oxygen sites to the isotope effect, in order to locate the pairing interaction within the unit cell.

%B Physical Review B %V 44 %G eng %U https://journals.aps.org/prb/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevB.44.9556 %& 9556 %R 10.1103/PhysRevB.44.9556