Highly textured thick films by a melt-annealing technique in the Bi-Sr-Ca-Cu-O system

A melt-annealing method has been developed to deposit highly textured superconducting thick films on different substrates in the Bi-Sr-Ca-Cu-O system. As opposed to previous techniques, this method uses powder made from an extremely dense glass sample to yield very uniform and dense thick films. The x-ray diffraction and scanning electron microscopy results indicate that the superconducting phase is strongly oriented along the c axis perpendicular to the substrate and the films are chemically uniform. Electrical transport measurements consistently show a Tc near 80 K for all samples.