Preparation and characterization of a sol-gel prepared ferroelectric sandwich structure

A novel silicon-based PbTiO3/Pb(Zr,Ti)O-3/PbTiO3 (PT/PZT/PT) sandwich structure has been prepared using a sol-gel method. The annealing temperature is greatly reduced compared with those structures without PT layers. Capacitance-voltage (C-V), leakage current-voltage (I-V), polarization-field (P-E), dielectric-frequency response and polarization fatigue of the sandwich structure are examined. The relative dielectric constant, the coercive field and the remanent polarization of the PZT films are measured to be about 900, 18 kV/cm and 16 muC/cm(2) respectively. The current density is less than 5 x 10(-9) A/cm(2) below 200 kV/cm. The dielectric constant of the structure remains constant at low frequency, and decreases to some degree at high frequency. The retained polarization does not change significantly after 8 x 10(9) read/write cycles. The PZT films are proved to have very good dielectric and ferroelectric properties. The new PT/PZT/PT sandwich structure can be valuable for memory devices and other applications.