Abstract
The main objective of this research is to find a suitable alternate solution based seed layer for the standard RABiTS three-layer architecture of physical vapor deposited CeO2 cap/YSZ barrier/Y2O3 seed on Ni-5%W metal tape. In the present work, we have identified CeO2 buffer layer as a potential replacement for Y2O3 seeds. Using a metal-organic deposition (MOD) process, we have grown smooth, crack-free, epitaxial thin films of CeO2 (both pure and Zr, Cu and Gd-doped) directly on biaxially textured Ni-5W substrates in short lengths. Detailed XRD studies indicate that a single epitaxial CeO2 phase with slightly improved out-of-plane texture compared to the texture of underlying Ni-W substrates can be achieved in pure, undoped CeO2 samples. We have also demonstrated the growth of YSZ barrier layers on pure CeO2 seeds using sputtering. Both sputtered CeO2 cap layers and MOD-YBCO films were grown epitaxially on these YSZ-buffered MOD-CeO2/Ni-5W substrates. High critical currents per unit width, Ic of 264 A/cm (critical current density, Jc of 3.3 MA/cm2) at 77 K and 0.01 T was achieved for 0.8 µm thick MOD-YBCO films grown on MOD-CeO2 seeds. These results indicate that CeO2 films can be grown directly on Ni-5W substrates and still support high performance YBCO coated conductors. This work holds promise for a route for producing low-cost buffer architecture for RABiTS based YBCO coated conductors.
