Sol-gel processed ferroelectric and multiferroic thin films for integrated devices

Abstract

Ferroelectric barium titanate and multiferroelectric bismuth ferrite thin films have been fabricated by using sol-gel processing technique. The starting materials for fabrication of were barium 2-ethyl hexanoate and titanium (IV) isoproposxide. Bismuth nitrate and ferric nitrate were the precursors for the fabrication of thin films. The as-deposited films were annealed at higher temperature for crystallization. The X-ray diffraction study on the films showed that the as-grown films were found to be amorphous that crystalized to proper phases by annealing at 550 °C in air for one hour. All the samples showed high optical transparencies in the visible frequency range. The room temperature dielectric constant and loss tangent of barium titanate thin films at 1 kHz frequency were found to be 400 and 0.01 respectively. Both the dielectric constant and loss tangent showed small dispersion in the frequency range of 0.10–1000 kHz range. The ferroelectricity in barium titanate thin films was confirmed by the presence of bell shaped capacitance-voltage (C-V) butterfly loop and saturated polarization-field (P-E) hysteresis loop. The as-grown bismuth ferrite thin films were also found to be amorphous that crystallizes after annealing at 500 °C. These films also showed high optical transparencies in the visible region. The bismuth ferrite thin film samples showed saturated hysteresis loop and magnetic polarization-magnetic field hysteresis loop as well, confirming the multiferroic nature of the samples.