Ion-beam-assisted deposition of biaxially aligned yttria-stabilized zirconia template films on metallic substrates for YBCO-coated conductors

Biaxially textured yttria-stabilized zirconia (YSZ) films were grown on mechanically polished Hastelloy C276 (HC) substrates by ion-beam-assisted deposition and electron-beam evaporation. The surface root-mean-square (RMS) roughness of the polished HC substrates was ≈3 nm, as measured by atomic force microscopy (AFM). A water-cooled sample stage was used to hold the substrate temperature below 100 °C during deposition. RMS roughness of ≈3.3 nm was measured on the deposited YSZ films by AFM. X-ray pole figures were conducted for texture analysis; in-plane texture measured from YSZ (111) ϕ-scan FWHM was 13.2° and out-of-plane texture from the YSZ (002) ω-scan FWHM was 7.7°. An ≈10 nm thick CeO 2 buffer layer was deposited on the YSZ film at 800 °C before YBCO films were ablated by pulsed laser deposition at 780 °C in a 250 mTorr flowing oxygen environment. Good in-plane texture with FWHM ≈ 7° was observed in YBCO films. T c = 90 K, with sharp transition, and transport J c of ≈2.2 × 10 6 A cm −2 were observed in a 0.5 μm thick, 5 mm wide, and 1 cm long sample at 77 K in self-field.