Characterization of amorphous yttria layers deposited by aqueous solutions of Y-chelate alkoxides complex

• Economical method for crack-free amorphous yttria layer deposition by dip coating.
• Simpler process for planar yttria film as a diffusion barrier and nucleation layer.
• Easy control over the film properties with better characteristics.
• Easy control over the thickness of the deposited films.
• A feasible process that can be easily adopted by HTSCC industries.

Crack-free amorphous yttria layers were deposited by dip coating in solutions of different Y-chelate alkoxides complex. Three Y-chelate solutions of different concentrations were prepared using yttrium acetate tetrahydrate, yttrium stearic acid as Y source materials. PEG, diethanolamine were used as chelating agents, while ethanol, methanol and tetradecane were used as solvent. Three different combinations of chelating and solvents were used to prepare solutions for Y2O3 dip coating on SUS, electropolished and non-electropolished Hastelloy C-276 substrates. The thickness of the films was varied by changing the number of dipping cycles. At an optimized condition, the substrate surface roughness (rms) value was reduced from ∼50 nm to ∼1 nm over a 10 × 10 μm2 area. After Y2O3 deposition, MgO was deposited using ion-beam assisted deposition (IBAD), then LaMnO3 (LMO) was deposited using sputtering and GdBCO was deposited using reactive co-evaporation by deposition and reaction (RCE-DR). Detailed X-ray study indicates that LMO/MgO/Y2O3 and GdBCO/LMO/MgO/Y2O3 stack films have good out-of-plane and in-plane textures with strong c-axis alignment. The critical current (Ic) of GdBCO/LMO/MgO/Y2O3 multilayer structure varied from 190 to 420 A/cm with different solutions, when measured at 77 K. These results demonstrated that amorphous yttria can be easily deposited by dip coating using Y-chelates complex as a diffusion barrier and nucleation layer.