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Nucleation and growth rate influence on microstructure and critical currents of TFA−YBa2Cu3O7 under low-pressure conditions

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Abstract

The effects of variable conversion parameters on the microstructure and critical currents of TFA-derived YBa2Cu3O7(YBCO) films annealed under low-pressure conditions were investigated, accompanied by the analysis of their relationship with the nucleation process and the growth rate. It is found that non-c-axis oriented YBCO grains are formed under high supersaturation conditions, i.e., by increasing oxygen pressure, water pressure, or temperature. The optimal PH2O-PO2 window for preparation of completely c-axis oriented YBCO films expands as the total pressure rises from 50 to 100 mbar due to the decrease of supers aturation at enhanced total pressure; the corresponding maximum growth rate is only slightly increased up to 0.6 nm/s. Additionally, it is shown that the gas flow needs to be high enough to avoid random nucleation of YBCO grains. A single gas-flow-water-pressure diagram, showing simultaneously the film-growth rate, allows visualizing the cross-linked influence of processing parameters to achieve c-axis oriented YBCO films with Jc above 1 MA/cm2 in one single growth step.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Applied Superconductivity Research Center, Department of Physics, Tsinghua University, 100084, Beijing, China

    H. Chen

  2. Institut de Ciencia de Materials de Barcelona (ICMAB-CSIC), Campus U.A. Barcelona, 08193, Bellaterra, Spain

    H. Chen, K. Zalamova, A. Pomar, X. Granados, T. Puig & X. Obradors

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  1. H. Chen
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  2. K. Zalamova
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Correspondence to X. Obradors.

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Chen, H., Zalamova, K., Pomar, A. et al. Nucleation and growth rate influence on microstructure and critical currents of TFA−YBa2Cu3O7 under low-pressure conditions. Journal of Materials Research 25, 2371–2379 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1557/jmr.2010.0302

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