Analysis of material processing of sol-gel derived PZT to the performance of microaccelerometer applications

The processing conditions of the sol-gel derived lead zirconate titanate (PZT) thin films have significant influences on the piezoelectric characteristics and the interface quality, and affect the device performance of the following applications. High temperature annealing of sol-gel derived PZT is required to crystallize the spin-on precursors, but often cause cracking and diffusion of structure layers. The introduction of LSMO oxide electrode in this study not only improve the crystallization and fatigue resistance of PZT film, but also prevent possible cracking due to excessive thermal stress. Two types of annealing including furnace and rapid thermal annealing are investigated and the following poling conditions are presented. To assess the overall performance of the PZT films from various processing conditions, a single-axial piezoelectric accelerometer is fabricated. The initial result shows the feasibility of the experimental concept. Future experiments are pending to derive the optimum processing conditions for the accelerometer application.