Preparation of High-Quality Conductive La0.7Sr0.3MnO3 Buffer Layer Applied to Low-Cost YBCO-Coated Conductors

Through a simple and low-cost way to gain the precursor solution, a conductive and high-quality La0.7Sr0.3MnO3 (LSMO) buffer layer approximately 280 nm thick only by one single coating was successfully deposited on LaAlO3 (LAO) (100) single crystal substrates using an independently developed new method of polymer-assisted chemical solution deposition (PA-CSD). Highly epitaxial YBa2Cu3O7−x (YBCO) superconducting film with thickness of 500 nm managed to be deposited on LSMO/LAO. A study was made on the LSMO buffers and YBCO films with XRD, SEM, and superconducting critical temperature (Tc) analyses. The temperature-dependent resistivities of YBCO on insulating BaZrO3 (BZO) buffer layer and on conductive LSMO buffer layer were also investigated. It was found that the conductive LSMO buffer prepared at 840 °C in argon would possess high-degree out-of-plane and in-plane texturing, good density with a sufficient thickness about 280 nm, and microcrack-free nature. More importantly, the value of the self-field critical current density (Jc) of YBCO superconducting film on LSMO/LAO architecture was 2.8 MA/cm2 at 77 K.