Fabrication of in-plane aligned YBCO films on polycrystalline Ni tapes buffered with surface-oxidized NiO layers

Abstract

Strongly in-plane aligned, c-axis oriented YBCO films were successfully grown on polycrystalline nickel tapes buffered with [100]-oriented NiO layers. The in-plane and out-of-plane alignments of the NiO layer were achieved by a surface-oxidation epitaxy (SOE) technique using a [100]<001> cube-textured nickel tape. The in-plane textures of NiO layers fabricated so far with the full width half maximum (FWHM) values of 11-13 degrees are sufficient for the epitaxial growth of high-J/sub c/ YBCO films. Pulsed laser deposited YBCO layers on the NiO/Ni tapes were not only c-axis oriented with respect to the type surface, but also strongly in-plane aligned. The YBCO films on NiO/Ni tapes have a zero resistance T/sub c/=87 K and J/sub c/=10/sup 4/-10/sup 5/ A/cm/sup 2/ at 77 K.