Effects of ion energy on ion beam assisted deposition textured yttria stabilized zirconia buffer layer of coated conductor

High quality biaxially textured yttria stabilized zirconia (YSZ) thin films, as buffer layers of coated conductors, were deposited on hastelloy substrates by ion beam assisted deposition (IBAD) method with different assisting ion energy Ei. The roles of assisting ion beam and the influences of ion energy Ei on the structure of the films were studied. It was found that both the out-of-plane alignment and in-plane texture of the IBAD-YSZ films are sensitive to the variation of Ei. The results are explained in the paper by different damage tolerance of the differently oriented grains to ion bombardment.