Advanced Photon Source Activity Report 2002 at Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, IL, December 2003 - contribution title:''Microdiffraction Study of Epitaxial Growth and Lattice Tilts in Oxide Films on Polycrystalline Metal Substrates''

Texture, the preference for a particular crystallographic orientation in polycrystalline materials, plays an important role in controlling such diverse materials properties as corrosion resistance, recording density in magnetic media and electrical transport in superconductors [1]. Without texture, polycrystalline oxide superconductors contain many high-angle, weak-linked grain boundaries which reduce critical current densities by several orders of magnitude [2]. One approach for inducing texture in oxide superconductors has been the epitaxial growth of films on rolling-assisted biaxially-textured substrates (RABiTS) [3]. In this approach, rolled Ni foils are recrystallized under conditions that lead to a high degree of biaxial {001}<100> cube texture. Subsequent deposition of epitaxial oxide buffer layers (typically CeO2 and YSZ as chemical barriers) and superconducting YBCO preserves the lattice alignment, eliminating high-angle boundaries and enabling high critical current densities, Jc > 106/cm2. Conventional x-ray diffraction using ω- and φ-scans typically shows macroscopic biaxial texture to within ∼5o-10o FWHM for all layers, but does not describe the local microstructural features that control the materials properties. Understanding and controlling the local texture and microstructural evolution of processes associated with heteroepitaxial growth, differential thermal contraction and cracking remain significant challenges in this complex system [4], as well as in many other technologically important thin-film applications