Physical vapor deposition technologies have been developed which allow the fabrication of multilayer structures consisting of two yttrium–barium–copper–oxide (YBa2Cu3O7−xor YBCO) layers separated by a thick (∼4 &mgr;m), low dielectric constant material. The YBCO is buffered from both the substrate and the other films with ion‐beam assisted deposited (IBAD) films of yttria‐stabilized zirconia (YSZ). The YSZ layer provides both the texture necessary to deposit high‐quality YBCO films and protection from the insulating layer material. Using these deposition processes, a variety of materials, such as Pyrex and Haynes alloy, may be used for the substrate. The critical temperature and current values obtained for the two YBCO layers of the completed structure were on the order of 85 K and 2×105A/cm2, respectively. ©1996 American Institute of Physics.