Critical current density of YBa2Cu3O7-x films with BaZrO3 inclusions on SrTiO3 and Al2O3 substrates

Abstract

Recently, many efforts have been dedicated to the development of a reliable technology for the introduction of artificial pinning sites in YBa2Cu3O7-x (YBCO) films with the aim of improving the in-field Jc performances. One of the most effective technique resulted to be the inclusion of BaZrO3 (BZO) second phase embedded in the YBCO films. In this contribution we present Jc measurements on BZO-added YBCO films deposited on SrTiO3 (STO) and CeO2-buffered-Al2O3 (ALO) substrates. Samples were deposited by pulsed laser ablation technique using a composite YBCO + 5mol.% BZO target at the optimum conditions for fully oxygenated c-axis oriented YBCO films. Despite of a slight Tc reduction, BZO addition in YBCO-STO films resulted in an improvement of in-field performances with the appearance of a Jc plateau in the low field region which extends up to about 2.5 Tesla irrespective of the temperature at least in the investigated range (down to 65K). On the other hand, samples deposited on ALO did not exhibit any remarkable difference neither in the Jc value nor in the magnetic field dependences as compared with pure YBCO. The presence of 0° (magnetic field parallel to the c-axis) peaks in the Jc. angular behaviour revealed a c-axis correlated character of the pinning forces in BZO added YBCO films grown on both STO and ALO substrates. X-ray diffraction measurements and AFM investigations were carried out in order to determine the influence of BZO addition on films crystalline quality and microstructure.