Dielectric Properties of (Ba,Sr)TiO3 Thin Film Capacitors Fabricated on Alumina Substrates

Abstract

ABSTRACTDouble layer (DL) Ba0.7Sr0.3TiO3 (BST) capacitors with Pt electrodes have been fabricated with similar growth conditions on different substrates. The substrates used in the present study were r-plane sapphire, polycrystalline alumina Al2O3 (99.6% and 96%), and glazed polycrystalline alumina. BST films were grown by metal-organic decomposition (MOD) method. By varying the annealing conditions which affects the formation of the crystalline structure, significant changes in the dielectric properties of the BST films have been observed. BST films were characterized by Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscopy (FE-SEM) and Powder X-ray Diffractometer (PXRD). These observations showed that BST films grown at lower temperatures on alumina substrates exhibited the smallest grain size. BST films of the same thickness prepared under the same thermal processing conditions showed higher capacitance when grown on all types of alumina-based substrates compared to those deposited on control SiO2/Si. The higher capacitance on alumina was always associated with larger dissipation factor, and lower or similar leakage current density. The final tuning, of the dielectric properties of BST DL capacitors on non-silicon substrates, was correlated to the initial film formation temperature and post-annealing conditions of the BST films. The leakage current density, of DL BST capacitors fabricated on glazed alumina, becomes smallest when the BST processing temperature was lowered by 100 °C compared to the control SiO2/Si. The typical achieved leakage current density for 1500×1500 μm2 DL capacitors on glazed alumina was 3.8×10-9 A/cm2 at 250 kV/cm (36.5 fF/μm2), about 3 times lower than on SiO2/Si substrates (1.1×10-8 A/cm2 at 250 kV/cm, 31 fF/μm2).