Modified Lanthanum Zirconium Oxide buffer layers for low-cost, high performance YBCO coated conductors

The pyrochlore Lanthanum Zirconium Oxide, La₂Zr₂O₇ (LZO), has been developed as a potential replacement barrier layer in the standard RABiTS three-layer architecture of physical vapor deposited CeO₂ cap/YSZ barrier/Y₂O₃ seed on Ni-5%W metal tape. The main focus of this research is to ascertain whether: (i) we can further improve the barrier properties of LZO; (ii) we can modify the LZO cation ratio and still achieve a high level of performance; and (iii) it is possible to reduce the number of buffer layers. We report a systematic investigation of the LZO film growth with varying compositions of La:Zr ratio in the La₂O₃-ZrO₂ system. Using a metal-organic deposition (MOD) process, we have grown smooth, crack-free, epitaxial thin films of La_xZr_1-xO_y (x = 0.2-0.6) on standard Y₂O₃ buffered Ni-5W substrates in short lengths. Detailed XRD studies indicate that a single epitaxial LZO phase with only (0 0 1) texture can be achieved in a broad compositional range of x = 0.2-0.6 in La_xZr_1-xO_y. Both CeO₂ cap layers and MOD-YBCO films were grown epitaxially on these modified LZO barriers. High critical currents per unit width, I_c of 274-292 A/cm at 77 K and self-field were achieved for MOD-YBCO films grown on La_xZr_1-xO_y (x = 0.4-0.6) films. These results indicate that LZO films can be grown with a broad compositional range and still support high performance YBCO coated conductors. In addition, epitaxial MOD La_xZr_1-xO_y (x = 0.25) films were grown directly on biaxially textured Ni-3W substrates. About 3 μm thick YBCO films grown on a single MOD-LZO buffered Ni-3W substrates using pulsed laser deposition show a critical current density, J_c, of 0.55 MA/cm² (I_c of 169 A/cm) at 77 K and 0.01 T. This work holds promise for a route for producing simplified buffer architecture for RABiTS based YBCO coated conductors.