Formation of PZT crack-free thick films by electrohydrodynamic atomization deposition

In this work, electrohydrodynamic atomization was used to spray deposit lead zirconate titanate (PZT) thick films using a PZT composite sol–gel slurry. During atomization splats and clusters were generated from jet break-up. The influence of atomization–substrate distance on the characteristics of splats and clusters was analysed. At a greater distance dried clusters were predominant, which led to the formation of porous films; conversely, at a smaller distance wet splats dominated, which generated dense films. A distance of 10 mm was found to be the optimum deposition distance for this slurry to produce dense films. 28 μm thick PZT crack-free films were produced by depositing 60 layers of slurry using this technique. The resulting films had a homogenous microstructure and exhibited a relative permittivity of ∼ 220 and d33, f of ∼71 pC N−1.