Enhanced transmittance properties in Pb0.865La0.09(Zr0.65Ti0.35)O3 thin films deposited by pulsed laser deposition

Abstract

Transparent Pb0.865La0.09(Zr0.65Ti0.35)O3 (PLZT) ferroelectric films have been deposited on Si (100) substrate by the pulsed laser deposition (PLD), and the influence of different deposition temperatures (600–700 °C) on crystalline state, microstructure, and optical properties has been investigated. When the deposition temperature increases from 600 to 700 °C, X-ray diffraction analysis shows that a pyrochlore-to-perovskite phase transition occurs in PLZT thin films, and PLZT target is proved to have the pure perovskite structure. As the deposition temperature increases, particles on the surface of PLZT thin films gradually disappear, the density of the sample increases obviously, and the roughness is reduced from 14 to 7.5 nm. Meanwhile, the average transmittance rate of PLZT thin films increases from 91.86 to 92.84 %, and the maximum transmittance rate 97.69 % is obtained at the temperature of 700 °C. At the incident light wavelength of 632.8 nm, the refractive index changes from 2.43 to 2.47 with the increase in the deposition temperature, and the extinction coefficients maintain at 0. These results indicate that properly increasing the deposition temperature is not only beneficial for enhancing the density of, but also can improve optical properties of PLZT thin films fabricated by the PLD method.