Development of biaxially textured buffer layers on rolled-Ni substrates for high current YBa2Cu3O7-y coated conductors

This paper describes the development of 3 buffer layer architectures with good biaxial textures on rolled-Ni substrates using vacuum processing techniques. The techniques include pulsed laser ablation, e-beam evaporation, dc and rf magnetron sputtering. The first buffer layer architecture consists of an epitaxial laminate of Ag/Pd(Pt)/Ni. The second buffer layer consists of an epitaxial laminate of CeO2/Pd/Ni. The third alternative buffer layer architecture consists of an epitaxial laminate of YSZ/CeO2/Ni. The cube (100) texture in the Ni was produced by cold rolling followed by recrystallization. Crystallographic orientations of the Pd, Ag, CeO2, and YSZ films grown were all (100). We recently demonstrated a critical- current density of 0.73x106 A/cm2 at 77 K and zero field on 1.4 μm thick YBa2Cu3O7-y (YBCO) film. This film was deposited by pulsed laser ablation on a YBCO/YSZ/CeO2/Ni substrate