Pulsed Laser Deposition of YBa2Cu3O7 Superconducting Film on MgO Templates Spray Pyrolyzed on Hastelloy C276

Abstract

Pulsed laser deposition (PLD) was used to deposit YBCO on MgO-buffered C276 substrates in order to evaluate the quality of the deposited MgO films which were deposited by spray pyrolysis. The characterization of the thin films was done using scanning electron microscopy, atomic force microscopy, electron backscattered diffraction, X-ray diffraction 2θ-scans, rocking curve (ω-scans), phi scan, pole-figure measurements, and AC susceptibility. It was found that c-axis oriented YBCO films were grown on c-axis oriented MgO films which confirm that the deposited YBCO films copied the out-of-plane texture of the spray pyrolyzed MgO buffer. However, MgO and YBCO films have a very weak in-plane texture. The AC susceptibility measurements show that the YBCO films have a broad superconducting transition temperature which may be attributed to the weak in-plane texture.