Fabrication of preferentially (001)-oriented Pb(Zr,Ti)O3 films consisting of anisotropic single crystal nanoparticles

Abstract

Single crystal Pb(Zr,Ti)O3 (PZT) nanoparticles were synthesized via a hydrothermal method using oleic acid. The obtained PZT nanoparticles had a sheet-like structure, and transmission electron microscopy observations revealed that the normal direction of these sheet-like nanoparticles corresponds to the c-axis. PZT films consisting of these nanoparticles were fabricated through the dip-coating method on a Pt/TiOx/SiO2/Si substrate; the sheet-like nanoparticles were aligned with their c-axes parallel to the substrate. Preferentially (001)-oriented PZT film was formed because of the morphology of each single PZT crystal, and this preferential (001)-orientation was maintained even after heat treatment at 600 °C. Local piezoelectric properties were measured via piezoresponse force microscopy with a cantilever as the top electrode, and piezoelectric constant−applied voltage hysteresis loops with high squareness were obtained for the PZT film heated at 600 °C.