Growth of Biaxially Oriented Conductive ITO Buffer Layers on Textured Ni Tapes for YBCO Coated Conductors

We investigated the effect of the Ar
⁺
ion beam irradiation on removing NiO on the {100} (001) textured Ni tape surface, and the validity of the ITO as a conductive buffer layer. Excellent biaxial crystal orientations of the CeO
₂
, YSZ and YBCO were achieved in the YBCO/YSZ/CeO
₂
prepared on the {100}(001) textured Ni tape, by irradiating the surface of the Ni tape before starting the deposition. The J
_c
of the YBCO/YSZ/CeO
₂
/Ni tape exceeded 2 MA/cm
²
at 77 K. We also prepared the biaxially oriented YBCO on the ITO buffered Ni tape. We confirmed that ITO did not react with YBCO, and that ITO aligned biaxially on the {100} (001) textured Ni tape.