Structural investigations of rare-earth doped PbTiO3 thin films

In the present paper investigations of preferred orientation development in sol–gel fabricated lead titanate thin films substituted with rare-earth ions (RE = Ce, Sm, Dy, Er and Yb) are presented. The thin films deposited on platinized silicon substrate and crystallized at 700 °C were investigated by means of X-ray diffraction. Pole figure and fibre texture plot (FTP) techniques were involved in texture analysis. It is found that specific textures are formed depending on doping element. Films doped with Dy and Er crystallize with out-of-plane (1 0 0) preferred orientation, whereas Sm, Ce and Yb doped films were found to have the [1 0 0] direction lying in the plane of the sample with no in-plane texture.