All-chemical YBa2Cu3O7 coated conductors on IBAD-YSZ stainless steel substrates

We report on the fabrication of all-chemical YBa2Cu3O7 coated conductors on IBAD-YSZ (IBAD stands for ion beam assisted deposition; YSZ is yttrium stabilized zirconia) stainless steel substrates. YBCO films were grown by the trifluoroacetates route on top of CeO2 buffer layers made by metal–organic decomposition. The achievement of atomically flat CeO2 surfaces is found to be a key factor for obtaining clean interfaces with YBCO and high performance. Coated conductors with percolative critical currents of JcGB(65 K) = 1.8 MA cm−2 were achieved. The determination of the intra-grain critical current JcG from inductive measurements suggests that the limiting factor for JcGB is the YBCO in-plane texture, which is already of higher quality than that of the IBAD-YSZ cap layer