Highly effective and isotropic pinning in epitaxial Fe(Se,Te) thin films grown on CaF2 substrates

Abstract: We report on the isotropic pinning obtained in epitaxial Fe(Se,Te) thin films grown on CaF2 (001) substrate. High critical current density values larger than 1 MA/cm2 in self field in liquid helium are reached together with a very weak dependence on the magnetic field and a complete isotropy. Analysis through Transmission Electron Microscopy evidences the presence of defects looking like lattice disorder at a very small scale, between 5 and 20 nm, which are thought to be responsible for such isotropic behavior in contrast to what observed on SrTiO3, where defects parallel to the c-axis enhance pinning in that direction