Fabrication and characterization of YBCO coated conductors by inclined substrate deposition

Inclined substrate deposition (ISD) is an effective method for rapid fabrication of high-quality template layers for YBCO-coated conductors. We have deposited biaxially textured ISD-MgO films on flexible metallic tapes in a reel-to-reel system by electronbeam evaporation at rapid deposition rates, 2-10 nm(.)s(-1). Strontium ruthenium oxide (SRO) buffer and YBCO films were grown by pulsed laser deposition (LD). Pole figure analysis of a meter-long ISD-MgO tape was carried out by X-ray diffraction using a Bruker's D8 DISCOVER equipped with GADDS (general area detection diffraction system). The c-axis of the ISD-MgO film was tilted away from substrate normal. A full-width at half maximum (FWHM) of approximate to 10 degrees was observed from the phi-scan of the MgO (002) diffraction measured on samples deposited with 35 degrees inclination angle. Surface morphology measured by atomic force microscopy revealed a roof-tile shaped structure for the ISD-MgO films. Through the use of the SRO buffer, biaxial alignment in the YBCO film deposited on the ISD-MgO template was improved. The phi-scan FWHM was 5.8 degrees for the YBCO (005) diffraction. We have measured the critical transition temperature T-c = 91 K and transport critical current density J(c) > 1.6x10(6) A(.)cm(-2) at 77 K in self-field on a SRO-buffered YBCO film grown with ISD-MgO architecture.