Fabrication of cube textured NiO seed layer for YBCO coated conductor

Abstract The cube textured NiO was formed on pure Ni tape using a simple approach of oxidizing the surface of the Ni tape for 3–20 min in air at 1130–1200 °C. The thickness of the NiO layer was about 1–5 μm. X-ray diffraction (XRD) θ –2 θ scan, ω -scan, ϕ -scan, and pole figure were employed to characterize the in-plane alignment and cube texture of NiO film, and they showed that the NiO film was cube textured. The integrated intensity ratio of NiO I(2 0 0)/{I(2 0 0) + I(1 1 1)} was more than 99%, and the in-plane and out of plane full width at half maximum (FWHM) of the NiO buffer layer were 6.8° and 6.6°, respectively. Yttria-stabilized zirconia (YSZ) as a barrier layer and CeO 2 as a cap one were deposited by pulsed laser deposition (PLD), and YBa 2 Cu 3 O 7− x (YBCO) layer was prepared on them by PLD as well. YBCO superconducting layer with critical temperature ( T c )>88 K and critical current density ( J c )>4×10 5 A/cm 2 (77 K, 0 T) has been obtained successfully on Ni tape with a textured NiO seed layer.