Fabrication and X-ray characterization of biaxially textured thick film EuBa2Cu3O7−δ homo-substrates

To fabricate biaxially textured rare earth (RE) substituted RE-123 thick films as homo-substrates for growth of YBa2Cu3O7−δ (YBCO) superconductor epitaxial films, we have initially aligned polycrystalline EuBa2Cu3O7−δ Superconductor using a magnetic force and a mechanical force simultaneously. The structural properties of EuBa2Cu3O7−δ thick films uniaxially aligned by each single force and biaxially aligned by a combination of the two forces were studied for the first time using X-ray diffractometery. We report systematically the structural sample characterization of such EuBa2Cu3O7−δ thick films by X-ray diffraction (XRD), demonstrating the biaxially textured polycrystalline EuBa2Cu3O7−δ homo-substrates having substantial biaxial grain alignment with their grain [0 0 1] axes perpendicular to the surfaces of the thick films and [0 1 0] axes parallel to the magnetic field direction in the specimen plane. The biaxial textured thick film homo-substrates are thus formed. This can be seen as establishing a new paradigm in ceramics science.