Growth and characterization of epitaxial LuNi$_{2}$B$_{2}$C thin films on MgO single crystals T. Niemeier $^{∗}$, R. H¨ uhne, A. K¨ ohler, G. Behr, L. Schultz and B. Holzapfel IFW Dresden, P.O. Box 270116, D-01171 Dresden, Germany (Dated: Received: November 26, 2018) Abstract Thin films of LuNi$_{2}$B$_{2}$C have been prepared on MgO(110) single crystal substrates using stan- dard pulsed laser deposition from a stoichiometric target. Via the precise control of substrate temperature, laser energy density and pulse ablation rate, perfect epitaxial c–axis growth of the LuNi$_{2}$B$_{2}$C phase was reproducibly achieved with an in–plane alignment of about 1 ° and an out– of–plane order of about 2.5 ° . The samples prepared under optimized deposition conditions obtain critical temperatures of up to 15.8 K and steep superconducting transitions of about 0.3 K in the best samples. Residual resistivity ratios up to 15 were measured in the unstructured samples. The upper critical field H$_{c}$$_{2}$ was resistively measured along the [001] direction on a sample and fitted with a power law. The value of H$_{c}$$_{2}$ (0) = 9.82 T obtained from that fit is in good agreement with single crystal data and the power exponent describing the positive curvature for small external magnetic fields α = 0.19 indicates a relatively low intraband scattering in the films. PACS numbers: 74.70.Dd, 74.78.-w ∗ Email: tim.niemeier@ifw-dresden.de 1 arXiv:1002.3584v2 [cond-mat.supr-con] 19 Feb 2010