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Research involved in developing alternative energy sources has become a necessity to face global warming. In this context, superconductivity is an appealing solution to enhance clean electrical energy provided that lower production costs can be attained. By implementation of chemical solution deposition techniques and high-throughput growth methods, low-cost nanostructured epitaxial cuprate superconductors are timely candidates. Here, we present a versatile and tunable solution method suitable for the preparation of high-performance epitaxial cuprate superconducting films. Disregarding the renowned trifluoroacetate route, we center our focus on the transient liquid-assisted growth (TLAG) that meets the requirement of being a greener chemical process together with ultrafast growth rates beyond 100 nm/s. We developed a facile, fast, and cost-effective method, starting from the synthesis of metal-propionate powders of Y, Ba, and Cu of high purity and high yields, being the precursors of the fluorine-free solutions, which enable the chemical and microstructural nanoscale homogeneity of YBa2Cu3O7-x (YBCO) precursor films. These solutions present endured stability and enable precise tunability of the composition, concentration, porosity, and film thickness. Homogeneous precursor films up to thicknesses of 2.7 μm through eight layer multidepositions are demonstrated, thus establishing the correct basis for epitaxial growth using the fast kinetics of the TLAG process. YBCO films of 500 nm thickness with a critical current density of 2.6 MA/cm2 at 77 K were obtained, showing the correlation of precursor film homogeneity to the final YBCO physical properties., The authors acknowledge the European Research Council for the ULTRASUPERTAPE project (ERC-2014-ADG-669504), IMPACT project (ERC-2019-PoC-874964), and EU COST action for CA16218 (NANOCOHYBRI). The authors also acknowledge financial support from the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities through the “Severo Ochoa” Programme for Centres of Excellence in FUNFUTURE (CEX2019-000917-S), SUMATE projects (RTI2018-095853-B-C21, RTI2018-095853-B-C22 co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund, MCIU/AEI/FEDER, UE), and SUPERENERTECH projects (PID2021-127297OB-C21 and PID2021-127297OB-C22). The authors also thank support from the Catalan Government with 2017-SGR-1519 and Catalan energy network XRE4S (2018 XARDI 00002). L.S., D.G., and A.K. acknowledge financial support from the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities through the FPI grants PRE2019-090621, PRE2018-084537, and PRE2020-091817, respectively. L.S. and D.G. would like to thank the UAB PhD program in Materials Science, and A.K. would like to thank the UAB PhD program in Physics. A.Q. would like to thank the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities [“Juan de la Cierva” postdoctoral fellowship (grant no. IJC2018-035034-I)]. The authors thank the Scientific Services at ICMAB and ICN2 Electron Microscopy Division. The authors acknowledge the use of instrumentation as well as the technical advice provided by the National Facility ELECMI ICTS, node “Laboratorio de Microscopías Avanzadas” at the University of Zaragoza. The content of this paper is the object of a European patent application no. EP22382741.1 filed on 29/07/2022., With funding from the Spanish government through the ‘Severo Ochoa Centre of Excellence’ accreditation (CEX2019-000917-S).

Descripció del recurs: 23 desembre 2021 La problemàtica energètica és damunt la taula i la necessitat d’una aproximació multidisciplinària que permeti abordar-la tenint en compte la seva dimensió mundial és cada dia més punyent. Per parlar d’energia, a més de conèixer la tecnologia, hem de tenir molt present la ciutadania, fer un esforç humà i científic per tal d’entendre què ens demana i actuar en conseqüència. Per produir pensament energètic necessitem experts en economia, gestió, climatologia, sociologia, sostenibilitat... i també en tecnologia energètica! L’entrellat de les interaccions entre experts d’especialitat diversa en general ja és complex i, en aquest cas potser més encara. Les dificultats que apareixen en aquestes interaccions solen fer-nos globalment poc eficaços. No interaccionem de forma òptima! Així, i malgrat els esforços de molts, el diàleg en temes de sostenibilitat energètica o global entre experts diversos és dificultós. Som davant d’un tema amb un enquadrament complex. La transversalitat ha de ser gestionada i un dels propòsits que tenim és intentar aportar una mica de llum a l’aclariment de la situació.