Influence of annealing atmosphere on epitaxial growth process of the CeO₂ buffer layer for coated conductors

The epitaxial growth of the buffer layer on a textured metal substrate has a significant influence on the performance of coated conductors, which provides the potential to support a high current for electric utility and high magnetic field applications at 77 K. In this paper, we have fabricated the CeO ₂ buffer layer on YSZ (yttria-stabilized zirconia) (00l) single crystal substrates by the chemical solution deposition (CSD) method in different annealing atmospheres. The results show that both the thermal decomposition behavior of the precursor solution and the annealing atmosphere have an important effect on the epitaxial growth process of the CeO₂ buffer layer. The large oxygen partial pressure in annealing atmosphere is to the disadvantage of the epitaxial growth of CeO₂ (00l) crystal face with high energy. Moreover, the epitaxial growth of the CeO₂ (00l) crystal plane goes against a decrease in the surface roughness of the CeO₂ film. Therefore, it can be considered that the orientation growth of the CeO₂ buffer layer and its surface morphology evolution may be related to the thermal decomposition behavior of precursor solution and the change of oxygen vacancies concentration.