*Vladimir Matias, Chris Sheehan, iBeam Materials, Santa Fe, NM
We review ion-beam crystal alignment process for application to high temperature superconductor tapes, known as 2G wire. The primary material used in the ion-beam assisted deposition (IBAD) process is MgO, although other materials can yield successful crystalline texture. We have demonstrated that in-plane crystalline texture evolution in IBAD-MgO scales with deposition rate. We have shown that at high ion beam currents crystal alignment can be achieved in 1 second or less, yielding production throughputs of more than 500 meters/hr. For varying ion-to-molecule deposition ratios we show that the texture evolution scales best with the amount of material ion etched during deposition. To perform these experiments, we developed a unique experimental methodology based on linear combinatorics. This technique allows us to fabricate film-thickness wedges that provide high-throughput experimentation and allow us to easily obtain texture evolution plots. MgO crystalline texture further improves with thickness of a homoepitaxial layer deposited on top. We have developed an empirical quantification of the texture evolution in both IBAD and homoepitaxial layers. The best texture attained thus far in the MgO template layer on polished metal tape has an in-plane FWHM of 1°. We discuss manufacturing approaches using roll-to-roll, their speed limitations and scale up of the process.