Impact of low pressure consolidation annealing on electrical properties of sol–gel derived Pb(Zr,Ti)O 3 films

Abstract

We demonstrate drastic improvement of electrical properties of sol–gel derived PZT thin films by using low-pressure consolidation annealing. PZT thin films have been prepared on Pt/Ti/SiO 2/Si substrates using Pb 1.2Zr 0.4Ti 0.6O 3 source solution. We have employed low-pressure consolidation annealing at 400 °C for 10 min at 35 Torr before the crystallization anneal. The consolidated films were then annealed at 550–600 °C for 15–30 min in O 2 for crystallization. A remanent polarization (Pr) of 35 μC/cm 2 with a coercive filed ( E C) of 64 kV/cm was obtained for the PZT film crystallized at 600 °C with low-pressure consolidation process. Furthermore, it is also demonstrated that the leakage current density of the PZT film fabricated with low-pressure consolidation process is lower than that of the film fabricated by the conventional process. The possible crystallization mechanism of low-pressure consolidation process is discussed.