PbO volatilization and annealing conditions investigation of Pb(Zr0.52Ti0.48)O3 thin films fabricated by sol–gel method

This paper studied the PbO volatilization and annealing effects on the microstructures, surface morphologies, preferred orientation and ferroelectric characteristics of lead zirconate titanate (PZT, Zr/Ti = 52/48) films, which were spin-deposited on Si(1 0 0) and Pt(1 1 1)/Ti/SiO2/Si(1 0 0) substrates by sol–gel process. The composition and PbO volatilization of PZT thin films were semiquantitative analyzed by X-ray photoelectron spectrometer. Crystallization structure and surface morphology of the PZT films were investigated by X-ray diffraction analysis and atomic force microscopy. The ferroeletric properties of the PZT films were measured by RT66A ferroelectric tester from Radiant Technologies. We found that Pb loss of PZT films can be greatly suppressed by adding lead titanate (PbTiO3, PT) seeding layer, and films with PT seeding layers showed high (1 1 0) orientation. During the films annealing treatment, it was also found that the oxygen ambient assisted in decreasing PbO volatilization, promoting grains growth and lowering perovskite phase crystallization temperature. The PZT films annealed in O2 flow showed better ferroelectric properties with a remarkable increase of remnant polarization and a slight increase of coercive field.