Effect of magnetic structural processing on structure and texture of La2Zr2O7 buffer layers

Abstract

Epitaxial CeO2 seed layer and La2Zr2O7 (LZO) buffer layers were deposited on biaxially-textured Ni–5 at.% W (NiW) tape substrate by liquid-phase polymer assisted nanoparticles deposition (PAND) method. LZO layers deposited by PAND have consistently shown tilting of the [Formula: see text]-axis toward the direction of the sample’s surface normal. A new approach increasing the sharpening of the buffer texture by magnetic structural processing (MSP) of buffer layers was tested. The LZO layers, deposited on the seed and buffer layers after MSP, have dense and smooth surface structure, and more importantly, significantly improved out-of-plane texture, compared with the LZO layers that were deposited on a layer without MSP. Transmission electron microscopy study confirmed the [Formula: see text]-axis tilting of CeO2 and LZO layers and revealed the absence of interfaces between LZO layers which have been grown on the layers after MSP. There are very small (2–4 nm) gated pores in the single-crystal structure of LZO layers that are not typical for structure of LZO layers obtained by liquid-phase methods. Thus the LZO buffer layers can serve as an effective metal-ion diffusion barrier.