Fabrication of cube-textured Ag-buffered Ni substrates by electro-epitaxial deposition

Cube-textured silver buffer layers have been fabricated using the easily sc alable technique of electro-epitaxial deposition, Continuous 150 nm thick s ilver films with in-plane FWHM values of 8 degrees have been epitaxially de posited directly onto cube-textured Ni, Ni-10 wt% Cr and NiFe substrates us ing no intermediate buffer layer and no post-deposition heat treatment. Stu dies of the thermal stability of the coatings show that the texture is stab le up to 900 degreesC and that continuous films are retained up to 800 degr eesC. We believe that electro-epitaxial deposition offers a promising metho d for the fabrication of low-cost, long length biaxially textured substrate s for superconducting tape.