YBCO film growth on CeO₂-buffered YSZ substrate by the full-solution method

The full-solution method has been developed as a low-cost process for making YBa₂Cu₃O_7-x (YBCO) coated conductors. In this study, highly biaxially textured CeO₂ buffer layers have been fabricated on yttria-stabilized zirconia (YSZ) single-crystal substrates by the sol-gel method using inorganic cerium nitrate as the starting precursor material. High-quality superconducting YBCO film has also been fabricated on CeO₂-buffered YSZ substrate by the trifluoroacetate metal-organic deposition (TFA-MOD) method. For YBCO superconducting film, only (00l) diffraction peaks can be detected by x-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis. Also from the XRD analysis, the YBCO films show sharp in-plane and out-of-plane texture for all samples, which indicates that the YBCO film is epitaxially grown on the CeO₂ buffer layer. From scanning electron microscope (SEM) observations, the YBCO film shows a uniform surface structure. A critical transition temperature, T_{c 0}, of 91 K and a critical current density of 3 MA cm^-2 (77 K, self-field) were obtained for a 0.2 νm thick YBCO film on CeO₂-buffered YSZ substrate.