Microstructure of Nd-Ga-O/sub 3/ new seed layer for LPE growth of YBCO film

he microstructure and crystallization mechanism of NdGaO/sub 3/ (NGO) new seed layer for liquid phase epitaxy (LPE) growth of YBa/sub 2/Cu/sub 3/O/sub 7-(delta)/ (YBCO) were revealed using high resolution SEM and TEM. NGO layer deposited by PLD at room temperature shows that very porous and columnar structure and this layer indicated amorphous by x-ray analysis. Amorphous NGO layer was crystallized with good in-plane and out of plane orientations keeping columnar structure by simple post annealing process. Biaxially aligned YBCO thick films were successfully fabricated on oriented novel porous NGO new seed layer. Although many cracks were observed for normally LPE grown YBCO films on NGO(110) single crystalline substrate, it was crack-free formed on porous NGO[100] film.