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Grain orientations and grain boundary networks of YBa2Cu3O7−δ films deposited by metalorganic and pulsed laser deposition on biaxially textured Ni–W substrates

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Abstract

We report a detailed study of the grain orientations and grain boundary (GB) networks in YBa2Cu3O7-δ (YBCO) films ∼0.8 μm thick grown by both the in situ pulsed laser deposition (PLD) process and the ex situ metalorganic deposition (MOD) process on rolling-assisted biaxially textured substrates (RABiTS). The PLD and MOD growth processes result in columnar and laminar YBCO grain structures, respectively. In the MOD-processed sample [full-width critical current density Jc(0 T, 77 K) = 3.4 MA/cm2], electron back-scatter diffraction (EBSD) revealed an improvement in both the in-plane and out-of-plane alignment of the YBCO relative to the template that resulted in a significant reduction of the total grain boundary misorientation angles. A YBCO grain structure observed above individual template grains was strongly correlated to larger out-of-plane tilts of the template grains. YBCO GBs meandered extensively about their corresponding template GBs and through the thickness of the film. In contrast, the PLD-processed film [full width Jc(0 T, 77 K) = 0.9 MA/cm2] exhibited nearly perfect epitaxy, replicating the template grain orientations. No GB meandering was observed in the PLD-processed film with EBSD. Direct transport measurement of the intra-grain Jc(0 T, 77 K) values of PLD and MOD-processed films on RABiTS revealed values up to 4.5 and 5.1 MA/cm2, respectively. As the intra-grain Jc values were similar, the significantly higher full-width Jc for the MOD-processed sample is believed to be due to the improved grain alignment and extensive GB meandering.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, Wisconsin, 53706, USA

    D. M. Feldmann

  2. Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico, 87545, USA

    T. G. Holesinger

  3. Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, 37831, USA

    C. Cantoni & R. Feenstra

  4. University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, Wisconsin, 53706, USA

    N. A. Nelson & D. C. Larbalestier

  5. American Superconductor, Westborough, Massachusetts, 01581, USA

    D. T. Verebelyi, X. Li & M. Rupich

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Feldmann, D.M., Holesinger, T.G., Cantoni, C. et al. Grain orientations and grain boundary networks of YBa2Cu3O7−δ films deposited by metalorganic and pulsed laser deposition on biaxially textured Ni–W substrates. Journal of Materials Research 21, 923–934 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1557/jmr.2006.0110

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