**2. Infrared Nd:YAG laser ablation and post heat treatment**

The laser system used in this study is a Q-switched Nd:YAG (Spectra Physics GCR 230) operating at 1064 nm at 10 Hz repetition rate with 8 ns pulsed duration. The deposition was performed in a stainless steel vacuum chamber continuously evacuated to maintain a pressure of 10−<sup>2</sup> mbar. The solid state sintered target is placed 30 mm from the substrate and was rotated for uniform laser ablation. The Bi-Sr-Ca-Cu-O films were grown on (100) MgO substrate with laser fluence of 5.5 J/cm2 , while Y-123 films on (100) *SrTiO*<sup>3</sup> single crystal substrates with laser fluence of 2.0 J/cm2.These values of fluences are typical for PLD of Bi-Sr-Ca-Cu-O and Y-Ba-Cu-O [5, 8, 23, 33].The deposition was performed without substrate heating and no other gasses from external sources were introduced in the chamber during deposition.

For Bi-Sr-Ca-Cu-O films, two heat profiles in ambient air was performed. Some were partial melted at 880 ◦C and some were heated at 940 ◦C for 15 minutes and rapidly quenched to room temperature. Both of the heat profiles are seconded with annealing at 850 ◦C for 2 hour. In the case of Y-123, three heat treatment steps were performed, first the films were re-sintered at 900 ◦C for 12 hrs followed by heating at 1000 ◦C for 15 minutes and rapid thermal quenched to room temperature. The last heat treatment involves, heating on a tube furnace with oxygen at 930 ◦C for 12 hours, and annealed at 450 ◦C for 2 hours in ambient air.

Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) were used to examine the surface morphological features and composition of the films. Film thickness was determined by SEM cross- sectional imaging. X-ray Diffraction (XRD) were used to investigate the composition and crystal properties of the film. To verify superconducting property of the films, linear four point probe resistance measurement were performed.
