Abstract
Chemical solution deposition of BiFeO3 thin films is one of the most commercially available techniques to produce large-scale low-cost coatings for further application in memory devices. In this contribution, we implemented piezoresponse force and conductive atomic force microscopies to study the layer-by-layer sol-gel deposition of BiFeO3 thin films focusing on the local phase distribution, morphology, piezoelectric response, and leakage current. The final properties of resulting thin films are found to be determined not only by the composition of the gel and crystallization step but by the gelation step as well. The drying temperature and treatment duration of the solution are shown to drastically influence the film coverage, which finally determines the morphology of the films and behavior of the crystallization process.
Highlights
BiFeO3 (BFO) is one of the most interesting multiferroic thin-film materials because of its high spontaneous polarization and anti-ferromagnetic properties [1,2]
Local piezoresponse force microscopy (PFM) measurements characterize mostly a contribution localized mostly in the grain boundary regions and a fraction of the piezoelectrically-inactive phase was from the intrinsic mechanism of the piezoresponse and are exempted from the leakage through gradually reduced with increasing thickness and achieved 95% in the thickest film (Table 2)
We performed the deposition of BiFeO3 thin films under different drying conditions
Summary
BiFeO3 (BFO) is one of the most interesting multiferroic thin-film materials because of its high spontaneous polarization and anti-ferromagnetic properties [1,2]. BFO demonstrates a variety of phenomena at the interfaces: electrical conductivity [3], enhanced dielectric response [4], and flexoelectricity [5]. These interfaces can be created and erased by the application of the external electric field [3,6,7], as well as they are shown to be responsible to impact on the resistive switching phenomena occurring in BFO films [6,8,9]. PLD and RF sputtering were demonstrated to produce high-quality epitaxial BFO films with a small concentration of the structural defects and low leakage current [10,12]. Chemical solution deposition (CSD) is of great interest because it is more suitable commercially, cheaper and makes it possible to cover large-scale wafers [14,15]
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