Electrostatic spray assisted vapour deposition and structural characterisation of cerium oxide films on biaxially textured Ni tapes

CeO2 thin films were successfully deposited onto biaxially textured Ni tapes at a temperature between 400 and 600 °C using electrostatic spray assisted vapour deposition (ESAVD). The surface morphology and microstructure of the deposited CeO2 films were characterized using high-resolution scanning electron microscopy. The preferred orientation of both Ni tape and CeO2 films was characterised using both X-ray diffraction and pole figure measurements. It has been found that highly textured CeO2 films were formed epitaxially on biaxially textured Ni substrates. The orientation relationships between CeO2 film and Ni substrate are 001CeO2//001Ni and 110CeO2//100Ni. FWHM of the 111 Φ scans from both film and substrate were also recorded and compared, which shows the good CeO2 film alignment has been achieved. The results show that ESAVD is a promising and cost-effective deposition technique to form thin epitaxial CeO2 buffer layers onto Ni tapes for subsequent deposition of high-temperature superconducting oxides.