Studies of solution deposited cerium oxide thin films on textured Ni-alloy substrates for YBCO superconductor

Cerium oxide (CeO{sub 2}) buffer layers play an important role for the development of YBa{sub 2}Cu{sub 3}O{sub 7-x} (YBCO) based superconducting tapes using the rolling assisted biaxially textured substrates (RABiTS) approach. The chemical solution deposition (CSD) approach has been used to grow epitaxial CeO{sub 2} films on textured Ni-3 at.% W alloy substrates with various starting precursors of ceria. Precursors such as cerium acetate, cerium acetylacetonate, cerium 2-ethylhexanoate, cerium nitrate, and cerium trifluoroacetate were prepared in suitable solvents. The optimum growth conditions for these cerium precursors were Ar-4% H{sub 2} gas processing atmosphere, solution concentration levels of 0.2-0.5 M, a dwell time of 15 min, and a process temperature range of 1050-1150 deg. C. X-ray diffraction, AFM, SEM, and optical microscopy were used to characterize the CeO{sub 2} films. Highly textured CeO{sub 2} layers were obtained on Ni-W substrates with both cerium acetate and cerium acetylacetonate as starting precursors. YBCO films with a J {sub c} of 1.5 MA/cm{sup 2} were obtained on cerium acetylacetonate-based CeO{sub 2} films with sputtered YSZ and CeO{sub 2} cap layers.