Deposition of Gd2Zr2O7 single buffer layers with different thickness for YBa2Cu3O7−δ coated conductors on metallic substrates

A series of Gd2Zr2O7 (GZO) single buffer layers with different thicknesses were epitaxially grown on highly textured Ni–5 at.% W tapes using pulsed laser deposition. These allow the subsequent growth of high-quality superconducting YBa2Cu3O7−δ layers. The superconducting transition temperature Tc reaches a maximum value of 92.4 K as well as a narrow transition width of 0.8 K for the optimized GZO layer thickness. The inductive measurements show the critical current density as high as 1.2 MA/cm2 at 77 K in self-field, indicating that a GZO single buffer layer is a suitable alternative for simplifying the second generation high Tc superconducting coated conductors architecture.