Preparation of Gd2Zr2O7 buffer layers for coated conductor by polymer-assisted chemical solution deposition

Abstract

Gd2Zr2O7 (GZO) buffer layers with a thickness of about 300nm have been directly deposited on bi-axially textured Ni-5at%W (NiW) alloy substrate and the Y2O3 buffered NiW substrate by a newly developed polymer-assisted chemical solution deposition (PA-CSD) method. The solution prepared from metal nitrate precursor has been achieved by a simple, low cost, and effective method. The Y2O3 thin film was deposited as the seed layer by dc reactive sputtering technique. The films have been studied with X-ray diffraction (XRD) and AFM analyses. It is found that only GZO buffer layer on Y2O3/NiW can be grown with highly c-axis oriented. Highly epitaxial 500-nm-thick YBa2Cu3O7−x (YBCO) thin film, deposited on GZO/Y2O3/NiW, reaches a maximum self-field critical current density (Jc) of 1.5 MA/cm2 at 77K the possible reasons are discussed in detail.