Epitaxial growth of Pb(Zr(0.2)Ti(0.8))O3 on Si and its nanoscale piezoelectric properties

Complex oxide materials display a broad diversity of behavior, such as ferroelectricity, piezoelectricity, superconductivity, and magnetism. Integrating these materials with mainstream Si processing opens several opportunities for applications in microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) and microelectronics. Recently, we demonstrated the epitaxial growth of Pb(Zr(O.2)Ti(0.8))O3 on Si through the use of a single crystalline SrTiO₃ transition layer. These structures, which have been grown by a combination of molecular beam epitaxy and off-axis magnetron sputtering, exhibit a uniform piezoelectric response down to nanoscale levels. Piezoelectric microscopy measurements reveal a piezeolectric coefficient of -50 pm/V, and the ferroelectric domain structure is switchable down to sub- 100 mn dimensions