<title>Structural and optical inhomogeneity of BaTiO<formula><inf><roman>3</roman></inf></formula> thin films prepared by metalorganic deposition from barium 2-ethylhexanoate and titanium dimethoxy dineodecanoate</title>

Abstract

Single phase BaTiO<SUB>3</SUB> thin films were prepared by metalorganic deposition (MOD) using barium 2-ethylhexanoate and titanium dimethoxy dineodecanoate as the metalorganic precursors. A series of experiments were conducted on the metalorganic spin-coated films and their correspondingly annealed samples by employing experimental techniques ranging from thermogravimetric analysis, fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, to various optical methods. The conclusions of our experiments are as the following: upon annealing the spin-coated films from the equimolar mixture of barium 2-ethylhexanoate and titanium dimethoxy dineodecanoate formulations, BaTiO<SUB>3</SUB> is formed around annealing temperature of 600 degree(s)C via solid state reaction between BaCO<SUB>3</SUB> and TiO<SUB>2</SUB> (anatase). The structure of MOD prepared BaTiO<SUB>3</SUB> films show pronounced inhomogeneity, viz. the crystallites are much larger near the surface of the film than near the substrate. Optical characterization shows that the scattering losses contribute dominantly to the total optical losses.