Effects of assisting and sputtering ion current on ion beam assisted deposition textured yttria stabilized zirconia buffer layers of coated conductors

Biaxially textured yttria stabilized zirconia (0 0 1) thin films were fabricated on untextured hastelloy substrates by ion beam assisted deposition method. The effects of assisting beam current density Ja and sputtering beam current density Js on the textures of the films were studied. The results indicate that as Ja or Js increase, both the out-of-plane and the in-plane textures are improved initially, and then degrade. The results can be attributed to anisotropic damage and selective sputtering effect of assisting ions. At the same ion-to-atom arrival ratio r, which is reflected with Ja/Js value, lower deposition rate can enhance the biaxial texture.