Preparation of Pb(Zrx, Ti1-x)O3 Thin Films by Source Gas Pulse-Introduced Metalorganic Chemical Vapor Deposition

Abstract

We prepared Pb(Zrx, Ti1-x)O3 [PZT] thin films on (111)Pt/Ti/SiO2/Si substrates at 620°C by metalorganic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD). PZT [Zr/(Zr+Ti)=0.68] thin films of different thicknesses prepared by the conventional continuous source gas introduction MOCVD (continuous-MOCVD) and by pulsed gas introduction MOCVD (pulse-MOCVD) were compared to investigate the growth mechanism of these films. Stoichiometric PZT films were obtained for a wider range of Pb source input gas flow rates under fixed Zr and Ti sources for pulse-MOCVD compared with that for continuous-MOCVD. Highly (111)-oriented films were obtained for pulse-MOCVD regardless of their thickness, while the (111)-orientation decreased with film thickness for continuous-MOCVD. This suggests that the orientation homogeneity along the film thickness is higher for pulse-MOCVD films than for continuous-MOCVD films. The surface roughness of the pulse-MOCVD films was smaller than that of the continuous-MOCVD films and this result corresponds to the decrease of the leakage current density of the film. Well-saturated hysteresis loops with good square shapes were obtained, and the remanent polarization (Pr) and the coercive field (Ec) values of 100-nm-thick films prepared by pulse-MOCVD were 37 µC/cm2 and 82 kV/cm, respectively.