Microstructural analysis on growth and crystallization mechanism of YBCO films deposited by advanced TFA-MOD process

Abstract

We have investigated effects of the heating rate in the crystallization process on Ic values and microstructures of YBa2Cu3O7−δ (YBCO) films, which were fabricated by the advanced metalorganic deposition (MOD) method using trifluoroacetates. As a result, it was found that the slow heating rate less than 2°C/min in the crystallization process increases the volume of randomly oriented YBCO crystals, which results in a low Ic value of the YBCO film. TEM observations of quenched samples prepared by cooling rapidly during the crystallization process revealed that unreacted phase particles such as CuO, Y2Cu2O5 and Ba–O–F crystallize and coarsen to large crystals before the nucleation and growth of YBCO crystals in the case of slow heating. We conclude that it is important to control the size and distributions of the unreacted phase particles in the crystallization process, in order to fabricate the YBCO coated conductor with high Ic.