Preparation and characterization of a biaxially textured Gd 2 Zr 2 O 7 and Ce 0.9 La 0.1 O 2−y (CLO, cap)/Gd 2 Zr 2 O 7 (GZO, barrier) buffer layer stack by the metal-organic deposition route are reported. YBa 2 Cu 3 O 7−d (YBCO) superconductor films were deposited by the pulsed-laser deposition (PLD) technique to assess the efficiency of such a novel buffer layer stack. Biaxial texture quality and morphology of the buffer layers and the YBCO superconductor films were fully characterized. The surface crystallinity of the buffer layers is studied by the electron backscatter diffraction technique. It is revealed that post-annealing GZO films in 2% H 2 in Ar is an effective way to improve the surface crystallinity. As a result, a highly textured CLO film can grow directly on the GZO film at a lower crystallization temperature. The critical current density of a YBCO PLD film is higher than 1 MA cm −2 (@77 K, in self-field), demonstrating that the novel CLO/GZO stack is very promising for further development of low cost buffer layer architectures for coated conductors.

The influences of aluminum cube texture on etched foil qualities and current efficiency were studied in this paper. The present results indicated that the decrease of cube texture (volume fraction) would lead to the decrease of tunnel densities on etched foils. Current efficiency changed little with cube texture and could reach up to 98%. The same current efficiency led to the same electrochemical corrosion weight loss, which caused the etched foils with a smaller tunnel density had a larger tunnel size. The same electrochemical corrosion weight loss would also lead to the etched foils produced by different cube texture foil have the same folding endurance. The etched foil produced by the foil with a better cube texture would have a larger tunnel density, which caused the capacitance of it was larger.