Growth of highly orientated 0.65Pb(Mg1/3Nb2/3)O 3–0.35PbTiO 3 films by pulsed laser deposition

Abstract

0.65Pb(Mg 1/3Nb 2/3)O 3–0.35PbTiO 3 thin films (PMN-PT) on LaNiO 3 (LNO) metallic oxide electrode were successfully deposited using pulsed laser deposition technique. LaAlO 3 (LAO) and SiO 2/Si were employed as substrates. By controlling the operating parameters, high quality with preferred orientation of growth of PMN films on LNO were successfully fabricated. XRD Bragg scan ( θ–2 θ) of optimized PMN-PT/LNO/SiO 2/Si and PMN-PT/LNO/LAO films showed (100) and (200) peaks of the pseudocubic PMN-PT and LNO only indicating the nature of highly orientated out-of-plane texture. In-plan orientations of the films of PMN-PT/LNO/LAO were studied by ϕ scan, which demonstrated cube-on-cube orientation, namely, perovskite [100]‖LNO pseudo-cubic [100]‖LAO [100]. The crystalline quality of the (100) orientated films were examined by rocking curves of (200) reflections. The full-width at half-maximum (FWHM) value of PMN-PT on LAO substrate is 2.4°. Mechanical properties of the PMN-PT film were studied using nano-indentation technique and piezoelectric properties were characterized by a ferroelectric tester.