LZO covered Cu-based substrates

A Cu-based substrate has been made by electrodepositing a Ni layer on top of cube-textured Cu tape obtained by an alternating mechanical/thermal treatment. It could be found that the volume fraction of the cube texture component of Cu tapes increased with the annealing temperatures for an optimized rolling process. When the annealing temperature is at 800 °C, the sharpness of cube texture is best. In order to fabricate LZO films on the Cu-based substrate, a Ni layer was added on top of the Cu tape by electroplating. The thickness of Ni layer not only affects the texture sharpness of the substrate, but also affects its thermal stability of texture. A thickness of 15 μm was efficient to protect the Cu tapes. Fabricating well bi-axially textured LZO film on this bi-metallic substrate proves that this new Cu-based substrate is a good choice for coated conductor.