Influence of layer thickness and growth temperature on in-field Jc in BaZrO3/YBa2Cu3Oy quasi-multilayered films

Highlights: ► BaZrO3-doped YBCO thin films were fabricated by a quasi-multilayering process. ► The thickness of a YBCO layer and the growth temperature were modulated. ► The Jc(θ) properties exhibited both random pinning and c-axis-correlated one. ► The peak of Jc around B||c emerges for films grown at higher temperature. ► The Jc peak developed and increased with decreasing thickness of a YBCO layer. -- Abstract: To investigate the influence of spatial distributions of 3D pinning centers on critical current density Jc, BaZrO3-doped YBa2Cu3Oy thin films were fabricated by a quasi-multilayering process. The crossover from a random pinning feature to a peak behavior around the c-axis direction was observed in the angular dependence of Jc when the thickness of a YBCO layer and the growth temperature were modulated. The positions of BaZrO3 particles within the films are considered to be more correlated in the c-axis direction as the thickness of a YBCO layer becomes thinner. The lower growth temperature, on the other hand, suppresses the migration of adatoms, leading to randomly distributed BaZrO3 particles