Effects of assisting and sputtering beams in IBAD method for a long tape fabrication

In order to optimize the ion beam assisted deposition (IBAD) process, we have investigated the influence of assisting ion beam currents on grain alignment as well as microstructure in Gd2Zr2O7-x (GZO) buffer films using a fixed short sample. It was found that an assisting ion beam enhanced crystallization of a film and, at the same time, resputtered the surface. It is important to balance both of the two factors for attaining a texturing. Other deposition parameters, such as the assisting ion beam voltage, the sputtering ion beam voltage and current, the substrate temperature, the target-to-substrate distance and so on, were also optimized and then a homogeneous and highly textured GZO buffer was obtained. We applied the optimal condition by a fixed short tape to a long tape fabrication. Although degradation in the in-plane grain alignment with deposition time was observed, this was solved by a multiple-coating process. Consequently, a 105-m long uniformly textured IBAD-GZO tape was successfully fabricated with a small deviation of in-plane grain alignments of the full width at half maximum in X-ray phi-scan, Δphi values of 14.1 and 15.0 deg. at the both ends