Preparation of Thick BaZrO3 Epitaxial Film for Coated Conductors by Polymer-Assisted Chemical Solution Deposition Method

BaZrO3 (BZO) epitaxial films have been deposited on single-crystal substrate by polymer-assisted chemical solution deposition method and have been studied with X-ray diffraction (XRD), SEM, and AFM analyses. It is found that the surface morphology and degree of c-axis texturing of the epi-films vary with processing temperature and atmosphere, with the optimized processing temperature of 900 °C in argon. The films are found with good phase purity, high-degree in-plane and out-of-plane texturing, good density with pin hole- and microcrack-free nature, and a sufficient thickness of >250 nm. Highly epitaxial 700-nm-thick YBa2Cu3O7−x (YBCO) thin film exhibits the self-field critical current density (Jc) that reached 1.2 MA/cm2 at 77 K. These results show that the BZO epi-films made with the current technique possess potentials as a single buffer layer for YBCO-coated conductors.