Fabrication of biaxially textured Cu-Ni alloy tapes for YBCO coated conductor

Nickel is well suited as a substrate material for YBa2Cu3O7-x coated conductors. However, nickel's ferromagnetism leads to AC losses when it is used in AC applications. In this paper, Cu-Ni non-magnetic tapes were made for YBa2Cu3O7-x film deposition. The biaxially textured Cu-Ni alloy tapes were formed through heavy cold rolling followed by recrystallization heat treatment. Cu-Ni alloy tapes with sharp cube texture, full width at half maximum (FWHM) less than 9 deg. for X-ray (1 1 1) φ-scan, were obtained. The NiO(2 0 0) buffer layer was formed on Cu-Ni alloy tapes by using surface-oxidation epitaxy method. The textures of the substrate and the NiO(2 0 0) buffer layer were characterized by X-ray diffraction θ-2θ-scan, φ-scan and pole figures. The surface morphology of NiO buffer layer on the Cu-Ni alloy tapes was observed by scanning electron microscope