Thin films of the high-temperature superconductor YBa 2 Cu 3 O 7 ؊ ␦ exhibit both a large critical current (the superconducting current density generally lies between 10 11 and 10 12 A m −2 at 4.2 K in zero magnetic field) and a decrease in such currents with magnetic field that point to the importance of strong vortex pinning along extended defects 1,2 . But it has hitherto been unclear which types of defect-dislocations, grain boundaries, surface corrugations and anti-phase boundaries-are responsible. Here we make use of a sequential etching technique to address this question. We find that both edge and screw dislocations, which can be mapped

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At low temperatures dislocations are the dominant flux-pinning centers in thin films of YBa 2 Cu 3 O 7Ϫ␦ deposited on ͑100͒ SrTiO 3 substrates ͓B. Dam et al., Nature ͑London͒ 399, 439 ͑1999͔͒. Using a wet-chemical etching technique in combination with atomic force microscopy, both the length and the lateral dislocation distribution are determined in laser ablated YBa 2 Cu 3 O 7Ϫ␦ films. We find that ͑i͒ dislocations are induced in the first stages of film growth, i.e., close to the substrate-film interface, and persist all the way up to the film surface parallel to the c axis, resulting in a uniform length distribution, and ͑ii͒ the radial dislocation distribution function exhibits a universal behavior: it approaches zero at small distances, indicating short-range ordering of the defects. This self-organization of the growth-induced correlated disorder makes epitaxial films completely different from single crystals with randomly distributed columnar defects created by means of heavy-ion irradiation. Since the substrate temperature can be used to tune the dislocation density n disl over almost two orders of magnitude ͑ϳ1-100/m 2 ͒, the mechanism by which dislocations are induced is closely related to the YBa 2 Cu 3 O 7Ϫ␦ nucleation and growth mechanism. We present evidence for preferential precipitation in the first monolayer and precipitate generated dislocations.

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