Highly textured Gd2Zr2O7 films grown on textured Ni-5at.%W substrates by solution deposition route: Growth, texture evolution, and microstructure dependency

Abstract Growth, texture evolution and microstructure dependency of solution derived Gd 2 Zr 2 O 7 films deposited on textured Ni-5 at.%W substrates have been extensively studied. Influence of processing parameters, in particular annealing temperature and dwell time, as well as thickness effect on film texture and morphology are investigated in details. It is found that a rotated cube-on-cube epitaxy of Gd 2 Zr 2 O 7 //NiW in-plane texture forms as soon as the (004) out-plane texture appears, implying that epitaxial growth dominates the crystallization processes. Thermal energy plays an important role in minimizing the difference of interfacial energy along two directions in the anisotropic…