The Influence of Oxygen/Argon Ratio on the Structure and Surface Morphology of GaBa2Cu3O7−δ Films Deposited by RF Magnetic Sputtering

Abstract

\(\mathrm{GaBa}_{2}\mathrm{Cu}_{3}\mathrm{O}_{7\mbox{-}\delta}\) thin films have been grown on CeO2 cap layer by RF magnetic sputtering with different oxygen/argon partial pressure ratio from 2:1 to 1:5. The CeO2 cap layers were fabricated by pulse laser deposition (PLD) on YSZ/CeO2/Ni-5%W alloy substrate and had good properties in structure and surface morphology. We study the relationship between oxygen/argon ratio and the performance of the \(\mathrm{GaBa}_{2}\mathrm{Cu}_{3}\mathrm{O}_{7\mbox{-}\delta}\) film in order to find out the optimized deposition condition. The structure and surface morphology of the \(\mathrm{GaBa}_{2}\mathrm{Cu}_{3}\mathrm{O}_{7\mbox{-}\delta}\) thin films were measured by X-ray diffraction (XRD), Field emission scanning electron microscope (FE-SEM), Atomic force microscopy (AFM). It was found that the texture and surface performance of \(\mathrm{GaBa}_{2}\mathrm{Cu}_{3}\mathrm{O}_{7\mbox{-}\delta}\) film, such as growth orientation, grain roughness, grain size and surface morphology, are deeply affected by the oxygen/argon ratio. And the film’s performance was the best when the oxygen/argon partial pressure ratio is 1:1.