Fabrication of buffer layers and seed layers on biaxially textured Ni tapes for YBCO superconducting wire

We have deposited Y2O3 buffer layers by metal-organic chemical vapor deposi tion (MOCVD) on textured Ni tapes coated with biaxially aligned NiO(100) la yers grown by surface oxidation epitaxy method. X-ray diffraction measureme nts showed that Y2O3 grew cube-on-cube on NiO layer, i.e. it has also biaxi al orientation. With these Y2O3 layers, in-plane aligned YBa2Cu3O7-delta (Y BCO) (001) thick films (similar to3 mum in thickness) have been successfull y grown by liquid phase epitaxy (LPE) method on the textured Ni tapes. YBCO seed layers, required in LPE process, had been also deposited by MOCVD. Th e LPE-grown YBCO thick films exhibit superconductivity transition temperatu re of T-c,T-onset = 90 K and T-c,T-zero = 65 K by four-probe transport meas urement. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.