Abstract
Structural and electrical properties of epitaxial Pb(Zr0.2Ti0.8)O3 films grown by pulsed laser deposition from targets with different purities are investigated in this study. One target was produced in-house by using high purity precursor oxides (at least 99.99%), and the other target was a commercial product (99.9% purity). It was found that the out-of-plane lattice constant is about 0.15% larger and the a domains amount is lower for the film grown from the commercial target. The polarization value is slightly lower, the dielectric constant is larger, and the height of the potential barrier at the electrode interfaces is larger for the film deposited from the pure target. The differences are attributed to the accidental impurities, with a larger amount in the commercial target as revealed by composition analysis using inductive coupling plasma-mass spectrometry. The heterovalent impurities can act as donors or acceptors, modifying the electronic characteristics. Thus, mastering impurities is a prerequisite for obtaining reliable and reproducible properties and advancing towards all ferroelectric devices.
Highlights
IntroductionFerroelectric materials with perovskite structures, as for example Pb(Zr,Ti)O3 (PZT) or (Ba,Sr)TiO3 (BST) solid solutions, have been intensively studied due to their impressive potential for applications in various domains ranging from domestic devices like burglar alarms or ultrasonic cleaners up to high-tech applications like non-volatile memories, infrared imaging, photovoltaics and energy harvesting, or agile antennae for microwave telecommunications
The losses for PZT layer grown from the commercial target (PZT-CO) were very large at low frequencies, in agreement with the results presented in Figure 5b, suggesting high dc leakage current
Epitaxial Pb(Zr0.2 Ti0.2 )O3 films were deposited by pulsed laser deposition (PLD) from targets of different purities, namely 99.9% and 99.99%, respectively
Summary
Ferroelectric materials with perovskite structures, as for example Pb(Zr,Ti)O3 (PZT) or (Ba,Sr)TiO3 (BST) solid solutions, have been intensively studied due to their impressive potential for applications in various domains ranging from domestic devices like burglar alarms or ultrasonic cleaners up to high-tech applications like non-volatile memories, infrared imaging, photovoltaics and energy harvesting, or agile antennae for microwave telecommunications. All these applications rely on the unique property of ferroelectrics to possess a spontaneous polarization that can be controlled with an applied external electric field, giving a hysteresis loop that is at the base of memory applications, or can be varied with temperature or mechanical stress, leading to pyroelectric and piezoelectric effect [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9]. In the case of the bulk ceramics, the precursors are, usually, oxides of the component cations [13], while in the case of the thin films, the precursors can be organic compounds containing the cations, as in the case of sol–gel, or ceramic targets, as in the case of RF sputtering of PLD
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