DEPOSITION AND CHARACTERIZATION OF PBTIO3 THIN-FILMS GROWN BY RADIO-FREQUENCY SPUTTERING ON MGO(100)

Abstract

A series of experiments for growing epitaxial PbTiO3 thin films have been made with radio frequency (r.f.) magnetron sputtering. The effects of various sputtering parameters such as substrate temperature, r.f. input power, gas composition, gas pressure and deposition rate on the chemical and structural characteristics of PbTiO3 thin films were investigated. Highly c-axis oriented epitaxial ferroelectric PbTiO3 thin films have been obtained under optimum sputtering conditions. The activation energy for the epitaxy formation was observed to be about 0.92 eV. The crystallinity of the epitaxial films was evaluated using rocking curve measurement as well as Rutherford backscattering spectrometry channeling measurement. The cross-sectional transmission electron microscopy study revealed that the c-axis oriented epitaxial film had 90 degrees domain structures. The epitaxial relationship of the film was PbTiO3(001)//MgO(001) and PbTiO3[100]//MgO[100] in the c-axis oriented domain, its surface microstructure was highly mosaic. A good transparency in the region above 400 nm to infrared, and a remanent polarization of 34 mu C cm(-2) and a coercive field of 97 kV cm(-1) were obtained.