Structural and electrical characterization of heteroepitaxial lead zirconate titanate thin films

Abstract

PbZrxTi1−xO3 films have been grown heteroepitaxially onto (001)SrTiO3 and SrRuO3/(001)SrTiO3 by organometallic chemical vapor deposition. As a start, the microstructure of PbZrxTi1−xO3 films on (001)SrTiO3 was studied as a function of the zirconium fraction, x. Rutherford backscattering spectrometry, including channeling experiments, and transmission electron microscopy have shown that the microstructure is dominated by the crystal structure of the PbZrxTi1−xO3. In the case of tetragonal PbZrxTi1−xO3 the films may contain a-axis oriented regions. These regions have not been observed for films with a composition giving a rhombohedral unit cell. Despite the rather large mismatch of rhombohedral PbZrxTi1−xO3 with the (001)SrTiO3, values as low as 4% for the minimum channeling yield have been obtained. For a rhombohedral film the ferroelectric properties have been measured. To this end a single crystalline PbZr0.8Ti0.2O3 film was grown onto (001)SrTiO3 provided with a heteroepitaxial SrRuO3 electrode grown by pulsed-laser deposition. A heteroepitaxial top electrode was grown onto the PbZrxTi1−xO3 using the same technique. The channeling minimum yield of the heteroepitaxial stack was 11%. The hysteresis loop saturates already at 1 V. Endurance up to 1012 cycles was observed without severe degradation of the ferroelectric properties.