Superconducting HfO 2 -YBa 2 Cu 3 O 7 − δ Nanocomposite Films Deposited Using Ink-Jet Printing of Colloidal Solutions

: To reduce the fabrication costs while maximizing the superconducting and pinning properties of YBa 2 Cu 3 O 7 − δ (YBCO) nanocomposite ﬁlms, the drop-on-demand ink-jet printing technique was used to deposit colloidal YBCO inks onto LaAlO 3 substrates. These inks containing preformed HfO 2 nanocrystals were carefully adjusted, prior to the jettability, as the droplet formation depends on the rheological properties of the inks themselves. After carefully adjusting printing parameters, 450-nm thick pristine YBCO ﬁlms with a self-ﬁeld critical current density ( J c ) of 2.7 MA cm − 2 at 77 K and 500-nm thick HfO 2 -YBCO nanocomposite ﬁlms with a self-ﬁeld J c of 3.1 MA · cm − 2 at 77 K were achieved. The ﬁnal HfO 2 -YBCO nanocomposite ﬁlms contained dispersed BaHfO 3 particles in a YBCO matrix due to the Ba 2 + reactivity with the HfO 2 nanocrystals. These nanocomposite ﬁlms presented a more gradual decrease of J c with the increased magnetic ﬁeld. These nanocomposite ﬁlms also showed higher pinning force densities than the pristine ﬁlms. This pinning enhancement was related to the favorable size and distribution of the BaHfO 3 particles in the YBCO matrix.


Introduction
In recent years, one of the biggest challenges in the field of applied superconductivity has been the low-cost and scalable processing of high-quality YBa 2 Cu 3 O 7−δ (YBCO) nanocomposite films for long-length production in order to meet the requirements of power applications [1]. Up to now, most of the textured superconducting YBCO thin films with a critical temperature of 93 K and the desired properties for a coated conductor architecture are realized via vacuum processes, such as pulsed laser deposition (PLD) and metal-organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) [2][3][4]. These deposition methods require costly high-vacuum systems, which are not so attractive at the industrial scale [5]. Therefore, there is a great demand for the reduction of fabrication costs of YBCO-coated conductors. The chemical solution deposition (CSD) method is a non-vacuum technique that fulfills the demand as a cost-effective, high yield, and easy-to-scale method. CSD is considered to be one of the most (reel-to-reel deposition) on industrial Ni-W tape [36]. This comprehensive study may serve as a generic approach to use ink-jet printing technology for the fabrication of several other electrical, magnetic, and optical nanocomposite thin films.

YBCO Ink and Nano-Suspension Preparation and Characterization
The YBCO precursor solution was prepared by dissolving barium trifluoracetate, copper propionate, and yttrium propionate in 1-butanol with a Y:Ba:Cu ratio of 1:2:3 and a total concentration of 0.75 mol·L −1 . Monodisperse HfO 2 nanocrystals were synthesized via 4 mmol HfCl 4 and 4 mmol Hf(OiPr) 4 in 20 g tri-n-octylphosphine oxide at 360 • C for 2 h under an argon atmosphere, in accordance with the work of Tang et al. [37]. After the heating-up synthesis, the reaction mixture was cooled to 80 • C and acetone was added (1:5 by volume) to precipitate the nanocrystals. The as-synthesized nanocrystals were purified and redispersed in an apolar solvent, e.g., toluene [38]. The crystal structure was identified via powder X-ray diffraction (PXRD) on a Thermo Scientific ARL XTra (Cu-K α , Waltham, MA, USA), while the morphology was observed using transmission electron microscopy (TEM) on a C s -corrected JEOL JEM-2000FS (200 kV, Tokyo, Japan). The nanocrystals' solvodynamic diameter was determined via dynamic light scattering (DLS) analysis on a Malvern Nano ZS (Malvern, UK). To achieve a stable HfO 2 -YBCO ink, the nanocrystals were transferred to a polar solvent via a ligand exchange step. First, acetone (1:3 by volume) was added to the nanocrystals dispersion to precipitate the HfO 2 nanocrystals. Second, the precipitate was transferred to 1-butanol via the addition of a steric dispersant (a copolymer with a phosphonate group), leading to a transparent and stable nanosuspension [24]. Finally, this nanosuspension was added to the YBCO ink with the desired molar percentage (5 or 10 mol%). The density of the pristine and HfO 2 -YBCO inks were analyzed using a 10 mL glass pycnometer (Duran, Wertheim/Main, Germany) and the viscosity was analyzed with a Brookfield DV-E viscometer (Middelboro, MA, USA) (25 • C and 100 rpm). The surface tension of both inks and their contact angles on LaAlO 3 were characterized with a Drop Shape Analyzer DSA30 (Krüss GmbH, Hamburg, Germany). The contact angles were measured using 0.5-µL droplets.

Thin-Film Deposition and Thermal Treatment
Prior to ink-jet printing, the (100)-oriented LaAlO 3 single crystal substrates were cleaned with isopropanol and heated to 400 • C to improve the wettability. The substrates were coated using a piezoelectric drop-on-demand ink-jet system (Dimatix DMP 2800, Dimatix-Fujifilm Inc., Santa Clara, CA, USA) equipped with a 10-pL cartridge (DMCLCP-11610, a 22-µm orifice and 16 nozzles). All coatings were achieved by printing lines with a droplet spacing of 25 µm using a customized printing waveform (see Supplementary Material) and a longitudinal spacing between each printed line of 25 µm. The maximum voltages of the waveforms for both cases, jetting and non-jetting, were adjusted for pristine and HfO 2 -YBCO inks prior to printing. Pristine YBCO inks were printed in a reproducible way with a print frequency of 12 kHz using the customized waveform with the ejection voltage applied to the piezoelectric nozzle in the range of 17-18 V for the jetting waveform and 9-10 V for the non-jetting waveform. The firing voltage of the piezoelectric nozzles was increased to 18-19 V with a lower print frequency of 9 kHz for the HfO 2 -YBCO inks. The single-or multi-printed layers were dried at 85 • C on a hotplate in ambient atmosphere for 5 min and subsequently pyrolyzed by heating to 400 • C with a heating rate of 3-5 • C·min −1 in a humidified O 2 atmosphere. To obtain the desired superconducting film, the pyrolyzed YBCO films were subsequently exposed to a two-step, high-temperature thermal treatment at 640 • C for 60 min (nucleation) and at 800 • C for 70 min (growth) in a humid 100 ppm O 2 in N 2 atmosphere, which was switched to dry O 2 at 450 • C for 2 h during the annealing step [39].

Structural and Electrical Characterization
The texture quality and phase composition of the pristine and HfO 2 -YBCO films were investigated by means of XRD on a Bruker (Billerica, MA, USA) D4 diffractometer (Cu-K α ). The surface morphology and the film microstructure in the cross-section were analyzed using a FEI (Hillsboro, OR, USA) Nova 600 Nanolab Dual Beam focused ion beam (FIB) scanning electron microscope (SEM). For further microstructural analysis, a cross-sectional TEM lamella was obtained using ion milling techniques via the FIB in situ lift-out procedure [40]. High-resolution (HR) TEM images were taken using a C s -corrected JEOL JEM-2200FS TEM operated at 200 kV. The image processing software ImageJ version 1.51j8 was used for the statistical measurement of particles in cross-sectional TEM images. The critical current density J c in the self-field (sf ) at 77 K of the YBCO films was obtained via inductive measurements using a THEVA (Ismaning, Germany) Cryoscan with a voltage criterion of 50 µV. Critical transport currents were measured in a 14-T Quantum Design Physical Property Measurement System (San Diego, CA, USA) in a maximum Lorentz force configuration on laser-cut bridges (800-µm length, 15−20-µm width) with an electrical field criterion of 1 µV·cm −1 . The pinning force density was calculated using the following equation: F p = J c B. The orientation dependence of the critical current density, J c (B,θ), with θ being the angle between sample normal and magnetic field, was measured at 30 K and 77 K by rotating the sample in applied magnetic fields of 1 T and 5 T between 280 • and 80 • with steps of 2 • near B ab and 5 • around B c.

Physical Properties of the Pristine and HfO 2 -YBCO Inks
For high-temperature superconducting applications, it is necessary to reach high critical currents. Apart from the explained benefits of the nanocrystal addition as artificial pinning centers, this can also be achieved by increasing the superconducting layer thickness. One possibility for increasing the thickness is through ink-jet printing multi-deposition [34]. However, in order to achieve proper jetting ( Figure 1A), fluid properties, such as viscosity, density, and surface tension, must be taken into consideration. The nanocrystals should also be agglomerate-free and stable in the YBCO ink. The jettability of droplets in a drop-on-demand print head can be predicted through its fluid dynamics, as characterized by the Ohnesorge number (Equation (1)): This number is related to the Reynolds and the Weber numbers and consists of viscosity η (Pa·s), surface tension γ (N·m −1 ), and density ρ (kg·m −3 ) of the ink, along with the orifice diameter of the nozzle α (m). The inverse value of the Ohnesorge number (Oh −1 ), being independent of the droplet velocity, should be between 1 and 10 to achieve stable jetting properties [10,41]. As shown in Table 1, the pristine YBCO ink with a concentration of 0.75 mol L −1 had a viscosity of 6.4 ± 0.1 mPa·s and a surface tension of 22.13 ± 0.16 mN·m −1 , determined at 21 • C, which yielded an Oh −1 value of 3.23. To study the fluid properties after the addition of HfO 2 nanocrystals to the pristine ink, the HfO 2 nanocrystals were synthesized and purified, resulting in agglomerate-free HfO 2 nanocrystals capped with hydrophobic phosphorus-containing ligands in toluene with a solvodynamic diameter of 10.2 nm, as determined via DLS ( Figure 2A) [37]. The nanocrystals had nanorod-like morphology with a diameter of 2.6 nm and a length of 8 nm according to TEM ( Figure 2B), and the monoclinic phase was recognized via PXRD ( Figure S1). However, the YBCO precursor provided a highly ionic and polar environment. Thus, a careful ligand exchange was needed to transfer and redisperse the as-synthesized nanocrystals into a polar solvent without any precipitation or agglomeration [38,42]. The HfO 2 nanocrystals were stabilized agglomerate-free in a polar solvent (e.g., 1-butanol) and YBCO ink when using a steric dispersant with phosphonate groups. This ligand exchange/phase transfer yielded a solvodynamic diameter of 10.7 nm, as confirmed via DLS measurements ( Figure 2A). YBCO ink nanosuspensions with 5 and 10 mol% HfO 2 nanocrystal concentration were used to study their rheological properties. First, it is important to remark that the solvodynamic diameter of the nanocrystals must be 100 times smaller than the orifice diameter of the nozzle (a cartridge with a 22-µm orifice and 16 nozzles was used in this work) to avoid nozzle blockage ( Figure 1A) [43]. As shown in Table 1, the solvodynamic diameter of HfO 2 nanocrystals was acceptable for ink-jet printing without clogging. The addition of HfO 2 nanocrystals to the YBCO ink slightly increased its density and surface tension while the viscosity remained constant (Table 1). This modification led to a negligible increase of the Oh −1 number as the values remained within the intended range between 1 and 10. Therefore, the nanocrystals did not affect the printability. It is noteworthy that the different inks in the cartridges were stable for at least 5 months when stored in a closed container, indicating a long shelf-life of these HfO 2 -YBCO inks.
In this work, we focused on the ink-jet printing deposition of pristine and 5 mol% HfO 2 -YBCO inks on LaAlO 3 substrates. Five mol% HfO 2 nanocrystals in YBCO ink was chosen as it showed good pinning properties in a previous work [24]. As shown in Figure 3A, the droplets from the pristine YBCO ink showed a tail when they were expelled from the nozzle. However, this tail later merged with the droplet to a single spherical droplet, while satellite droplets are not formed at all. The jetting analysis of the HfO 2 -YBCO ink displayed in Figure 3B revealed the formation of a droplet tail with very small satellite droplets (red dotted rectangle in Figure 3B), which finally merged with the main droplets. This means that the addition of nanocrystals affected the jetting behavior and its droplet formation. However, this could be managed by adjusting a printing waveform (more details in the Supplementary Material). Thus, it is clear that the printing waveform depended on the addition of nanocrystals and not only on the inverse Ohnesorge number. After characterizing the jetting behavior of the inks, the wetting interaction between the droplets and the cleaned substrates upon impact plays a critical role in forming a homogeneous and continuous coating. The droplets should spread out easily and merge with the neighboring droplets to form a continuous wet coating. In that regard, it is extremely important that the ink shows good wetting, i.e., low contact angles. The contact angles (θ C ) of all inks on the cleaned LaAlO 3 substrate were in the range of 14-15 • ( Table 1). The theoretical footprint contact diameter d con of the drop upon impact can be estimated using the following equation [41]: where θ C is the equilibrium contact angle and d 0 is the droplet diameter during flight measured via Dropwatch ( Figure 3A,B, diameter of 23.9 ± 0.2 µm for both YBCO inks). The theoretical footprint contact diameter d con was calculated to be 64 µm. The experimental contact diameter as measured using separated droplets on the LaAlO 3 substrate (distance of 100 µm) with an optical micrograph ( Figure 3C) was even slightly larger, in the range of 70-80 µm. This indicates that the local wetting of the droplets was good on LaAlO 3 substrates.

Multi-Deposition of Pristine YBCO Inks
In order to obtain a smooth and continuous wet coating, a drop spacing of 25 µm in both the x-and y-direction was used to deposit a thin-film. After single-printing one layer, the wet coating was dried and subsequently thermally treated (pyrolysis, crystallization, and annealing) in the same conditions as above, leading to a thickness of 125 nm for pristine YBCO ink (verified using the cross-sectional view via SEM, Figure S3A) with an inductively measured self-field J c of 4.74 MA·cm −2 at 77 K. However, in order to increase the critical currents of the films, we explored the possibility of increasing the film thickness via multi-deposition. This process consisted of printing one layer on the LaAlO 3 substrate and afterwards rotating the substrate 90 • clockwise for printing the next layer. This process was repeated several times without any additional thermal process until the desired thickness was reached. This procedure of perpendicularly printing was chosen to avoid accumulation of liquid at the edges of the substrates. This liquid accumulation can lead to crack formation during the pyrolysis, which degrades the superconducting properties. By increasing the number of depositions stepwise to eight, the thickness of the pristine YBCO film was increased linearly. The properties of different pristine YBCO films with different thicknesses are shown in Figure 4. The self-field J c at 77 K decreased with the total thickness. This was due to two main reasons. First, the increased thickness, and therefore (critical) currents, led to stronger self-fields, resulting in a stronger decrease of the self-field J c [44]. Second, the YBCO growth starting from a thick pyrolyzed layer (obtained from single or multiple printing and finally one thermal processing) was much more challenging. The thick pyrolyzed layer had the tendency to form non-ideal microstructures, e.g., increased a/b-oriented or other misoriented grains [45,46] or pore formation [47], and therefore, lower J c values were reached. In the films with more than four depositions, Ba(O,F) 2 was present within the YBCO layer, as confirmed using XRD ( Figure S4A) with 2θ = 24.9 • (111), 28.9 • (002), and 41.2 • (202), and the cross-sectional SEM ( Figure  S4B) image. The presence of Ba(O,F) 2 indicates that the YBCO formation was incomplete, which was not surprising considering that the employed growth process was kept constant without any further optimization for thicker films. A follow-up study should be devoted to optimizing the growth process of thicker films. Nevertheless, as clearly seen in the XRD spectrum in Figure S5A, the higher deposition numbers, e.g., four depositions, also exhibited intense YBCO (00ℓ) peaks-2θ = 30.6 • (004) and 38.5 • (005)-with just a small amount of secondary phases, such as Ba x Cu y O z (2θ = 27.7 • and 42 • ), Y 2 O 3 (220) at 29.9 • , and Y 2 O 3 (004) at 34.2 • . No (103) misoriented YBCO grains were observed at 32.8 • . The surface morphology of this four-deposition pristine YBCO film ( Figure S5B) showed a small number of a/b-oriented grains. It had a dense and homogeneous cross-section (only occasionally holes were visible) with a thickness of 450 ± 15 nm ( Figure S5B). This four-deposition pristine YBCO film yielded an inductively measured J c (77 K, sf (self-field)) of 2.73 MA·cm −2 ( Table 2) and a corresponding I c of 127 A (cm-width) −1 , which is similar to the 400 nm fully trifluoroacetic-based pristine YBCO film deposited on LaAlO 3 substrate with an I c of 120 A (cm width) −1 reported by Vilardell et al. [48].  . Experimental values of thickness and the inductively measured self-field critical current densities at 77 K and a normalized critical current after different deposition runs using pristine YBCO ink. Table 2. Comparison of several pristine YBCO films with their thickness and critical current densities obtained via the ink-jet printing methods found in the literature.

Multi-Deposition of HfO 2 -YBCO Inks
With the same printing conditions and one single deposition of 5 mol% HfO 2 -YBCO ink, films with a thickness of 150 nm after a full thermal process were achieved, as confirmed using a cross-sectional SEM ( Figure S3B), which yielded an inductively measured J c (77 K, sf ) of 5.12 MA cm −2 and a corresponding I c of 76 A (cm-width) −1 . Here, a HfO 2 -YBCO nanocomposite film with a similar thickness of 450 nm, as described for the pristine YBCO film, was obtained after only three ink-jet deposition runs with a thickness of 480 ± 20 nm after a full thermal process, as confirmed in the cross-sectional SEM image shown in Figure 5A. Furthermore, this image shows a dense film with a dispersion of BaHfO 3 particles (bright spots) throughout the film. In the XRD θ-2θ pattern of the 5 mol% HfO 2 -YBCO nanocomposite film ( Figure 5B), two strong reflections of YBCO (004) and (005) and a weaker reflection of Y 2 O 3 (004) were visible. The addition of preformed HfO 2 nanocrystals resulted in self-field J c values of 3.1 MA cm −2 and I c values of 149 A at 77 K for the 480 nm YBCO nanocomposite film with three deposition runs. This enhancement of the self-field J c for YBCO nanocomposite was likely due to the contracted Cu-O bonds, resulting in the increase of the pair-breaking energy [49]. The high-resolution TEM image of a HfO 2 -YBCO nanocomposite film ( Figure 5C) shows BaHfO 3 particles (indexed using the fast Fourier transform pattern, Figure S6) embedded in the YBCO matrix with mean diameters of 10.4 ± 3.9 nm. This means that HfO 2 nanocrystals reacted with the Ba 2+ ions, leading to the formation of BaHfO 3 particles in the YBCO matrix. Nevertheless, our previous work [39] demonstrated that the reactivity of preformed ZrO 2 nanocrystals results in a delay rather than in a degradation of the YBCO nucleation and growth. This growth delay can be circumvented via the introduction of an intermediate dwelling step, yielding an increase of J c [39]. However, Pop et al. [34] has recently printed a low-fluorine-based YBCO precursor solution with additives on a LaAlO 3 substrate with a final thickness of 0.6-1.2 µm via a single deposition, yielding a fairly good J c value of 2.0-2.7 MA·cm −2 and an I c value of 240 A at 77 K ( Table 2). This work of Pop et al. shows that strict optimization of the nucleation and growth of thick YBCO nanocomposite films should be investigated for this HfO 2 -YBCO nanocomposite approach for power applications.

Transport Measurements of Pristine and HfO 2 -YBCO Films
Ink-jet printing of both pristine and HfO 2 -YBCO films led to good in-field values of the critical current density J c at both temperatures of 30 and 77 K ( Figure 6). The effect of adding HfO 2 nanocrystals on the pinning properties was clearly seen by comparing the J c (B) curves of both films. The largest difference on J c was found around 1 T for the magnetic field parallel to the film normal (B c) at 77 K ( Figure 6A). This was a combined effect of the BaHfO 3 particles themselves and the concurrent larger density of the twin boundaries, as shown in Figure 6. Both had corresponding matching fields in this magnetic field region. Whereas the pristine YBCO film showed a power-law exponent α value (J c~B −α ) of 0.89 at 77 K, the HfO 2 -YBCO film did not show a clear power-law behavior due to the additional contribution at around 1 T. The HfO 2 -YBCO film showed an α value of 0.48 when fitting the line in the range of 0 to 1 T at 77 K. The maximum pinning force densities (F p,max ) at 77 K of the pristine YBCO film of around 1.3 GN·m −3 compares well to the value observed by Erbe et al. for similar films prepared using spin-coating trifluoroacetic-based YBCO (Table 3) [50]. On the other hand, the 5 mol% HfO 2 -YBCO film created using ink-jet printing showed an F p,max = 6.8 GN·m −3 at 77 K, a value around 1.5 times larger than a 12 mol% self-assembled BaHfO 3 -YBCO nanocomposite prepared using spin-coating [50]. This was due to both the smaller density of voids and the different molar BaHfO 3 concentration. Similar F p,max values at 77 K were shown for BaZrO 3 -YBCO nanocomposites (Table 3), starting from preformed ZrO 2 nanocrystals deposited via the trifluoroacetic route (6.0 GN·m −3 ) [23] and the propionate route (7.3 GN·m −3 ) [39]. However, these F p,max values were still lower than for self-assembled BaZrO 3 particles via the trifluoroacetic route (21 GN·m −3 ) [26]. The incorporation of HfO 2 nanocrystals in the YBCO matrix is unseen in the literature and leads to an excellent enhancement of F p,max by a factor of 5.2. It was itself higher compared to the incorporation of ZrO 2 nanocrystals in the YBCO matrix ( Table 3, a factor of 3.5) [24]. This increase can be explained by the good distribution of small BaHfO 3 particles with a mean diameter of 10.4 ± 3.9 nm in the YBCO matrix, whereas BaZrO 3 particles in [24] showed a mean diameter of 13.0 ± 5.5 nm. This increase is also attributed to the higher number of BaHfO 3 particles (1.67 × 10 12 ) in YBCO volume of 0.000048 cm 3 compared to the BaZrO 3 particles (0.68 × 10 12 ) of Rijckaert et al. [24]. The mean diameter of particles, numbers of particles, and its distribution in the YBCO matrix had a significant impact on the pinning properties.
The nanocrystals should be kept as small as possible with a high number value of particles in the YBCO matrix for good pinning properties. Nevertheless, it has been shown that the use of ZrO 2 and HfO 2 nanocrystals as single metal oxide nanocrystals leads to the formation of double metal oxide (BaZrO 3 and BaHfO 3 ) particles, which are coarsened to larger particles during the thermal process because of the Ba 2+ reactivity. This reactivity of the preformed nanocrystals could be avoided by using double-metal-oxide nanocrystals, acting as completely inert materials in the YBCO matrix. The optimization of these YBCO nanocomposite films can be accelerated by means of combinatorial methods. Concerning the thin-film deposition of oxide materials, PLD and sputtering process have been mostly applied for the creation of a continuous composition spread (CCS) [51][52][53]. The CCS method is often used to explore compositions with two or more different elements. The CCS method has the advantage of being able to grow thin-films with several dozens of compositions at a time compared with conventional solid-state synthesis [54]. It is not straightforward to use this CCS method via a CSD process because the superconducting properties depend on the YBCO ink having a Y:Ba:Cu ratio of 1:2:3. To understand the parameters that control the properties of YBCO nanocomposite films, a definitive screening design should be introduced as this is a powerful method to determine the descriptive equation of each material property with a minimal amount of experiments [55]. Further research is required to obtain homogenously distributed double-metal-oxide nanocrystals throughout the YBCO matrix with excellent superconducting properties on LaAlO 3 substrates and industrial metallic templates [56].  The critical current densities were increased by the nanocrystal addition in a wide angular range around the c-axis direction by a factor of 10 at 77 K and a factor of 7 at 30 K, whereas near the ab-direction, both pristine and HfO 2 -YBCO films showed nearly the same values. This is comparable to the results on ZrO 2 nanocrystals. Besides the ab-peak, there was a small c-axis peak that was visible, especially at 77 K. This was mainly due to correlated pinning at twin boundaries (and to some degree to extended particles). The decrease of the relative height of this peak due to the nanocrystal addition may have two reasons: First, the (small) decrease in vertical coherence of the twin boundaries led to a wider angular range where the twin boundaries were active, counterbalancing the higher twin boundary density in HfO 2 -YBCO films ( Figure S7). Second, a larger weight of the nanocrystal contributed at intermediate angles (compare, e.g., J c (θ) at 77 K in 5 T in the range 220 • -260 • ), or in other words, the smaller effective gamma value (not shown here) [22] hid the c-axis peak. The transport J c measurements illustrated that ink-jet printing is a suitable method for chemical solution (multi)-deposition of YBCO-based thin-films and nanocomposites, which has great potential for the scalable production of high-quality superconducting films for energy applications, such as rotating machines.

Conclusions
The chemical solution deposition method was used to obtain YBCO nanocomposite films using an ex situ approach with improved pinning performances. It was shown that the deposition of colloidal YBCO inks via a drop-on-demand piezoelectric ink-jet printing technique is possible. The use of this deposition technique required the adjustment of the printing waveform for every solution to make sure that the jettability was adequate. After this adjustment, it could deposit pristine and HfO 2 -YBCO inks on single-crystal LaAlO 3 substrates. This ink-jet printing technique could easily deliver small droplets in accurate positions, which allowed for a fine control of the film thickness. It made the multi-deposition of several layers possible for obtaining thicker films. It was possible to achieve epitaxial YBCO + HfO2 with further optimization up to four depositions, but above that, Ba(O,F) 2 was present within the YBCO layer, indicating the YBCO formation was incomplete. A follow-up study should be devoted to optimizing the growth process of thicker films. The TEM analysis of the obtained films revealed the presence of BaHfO 3 particles in the YBCO matrix, meaning that the original HfO 2 nanocrystals reacted with Ba 2+ ions during thermal processing. The presence of these BaHfO 3 particles resulted in higher pinning force densities compared to the Zr-containing compounds due to their smaller size and homogeneous distribution in the YBCO matrix, improving the pinning performances.
More effort will be necessary to transfer these results from LaAlO 3 substrates to industrial metallic templates and the commercial market as there are still challenges to overcome regarding depositing the pristine and HfO 2 -YBCO inks due to the different wetting and growth behavior on other substrates.
Supplementary Materials: The following are available online at http://www.mdpi.com/2079-6412/10/1/17/s1: Figure S1. XRD patterns showing only reflections of the monoclinic phase after the heating-up synthesis of HfO 2 nanocrystals. Figure S2. Optimized jetting and non-jetting waveforms used for printing (A) pristine and (B) HfO 2 -YBCO inks. Figure S3. Cross-sectional SEM image of one single deposition of YBCO (A) without and (B) with 5 mol% HfO 2 nanocrystals after full thermal process. Figure S4. (A) Cross-sectional SEM view and corresponding XRD spectrum (B) of YBCO layer obtained via five deposition layers. Figure S5. Composition and microstructure after full thermal processing of an ink-jet-printed YBCO film with four deposition runs. Figure S6. Fast Fourier transform pattern of isolated BaHfO 3 particles in YBCO matrix. Figure S7