Epitaxial growth of CeO buffer layers on biaxially textured (001)Ni tapes was studied using pulsed laser deposition. Relationships between microstructure and deposition parameters were systematically studied in order to develop reliable long tape coating processes. It was found that orientation and texture of CeO buffer layers were sensitive to deposition parameters. X-ray diffraction analyses showed that CeO buffer layers had pure (001) orientation at 860 °C. Under optimized deposition conditions, highly (001) oriented CeO buffer layers have been achieved at a high deposition rate of 1.5 nm/s in-plane texture and out-plane texture of CeO buffer layers were 4.25 degrees and 5.85 degrees, respectively. © 2011 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC.