HIGH J(C) YBCO FILMS ON BIAXIALLY TEXTURED NI WITH OXIDE BUFFER LAYERS DEPOSITED USING ELECTRON-BEAM EVAPORATION AND SPUTTERING

Epitaxial buffer layers of CeO2 and yttria-stabilized ZrO2 (YSZ) have been deposited on biaxially textured nickel using conventional electro n beam evaporation and r-f sputtering. Epitaxial films of YBa2Cu3O7-de lta (YBCO) have been then grown on these buffered substrates using pul sed laser deposition (PLD). Despite intermittent exposure of the buffe red substrates to 1 atm air, the resulting YBCO conductors exhibited t ransport critical current densities (J(c)) of 0.8 MA/cm(2) at 77.3 K a nd H = 0 T. The dependence of J(c) of these conductors on temperature and magnetic field is similar to that of conductors prepared solely by in situ PLD. These results suggest that it may be possible to use mor e flexible and easily scalable fabrication methods for preparing long YBCO conductors. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.