Study of (111)-oriented PZT thin films prepared by a modified sol–gel method

In this paper, Pb(Zr0.52Ti0.48)O3 thin films were successfully deposited on platinized silicon substrates and silicon substrates with PbTiO3 seed layer by a modified sol–gel processing. The results show that the films were more likely to grow on platinum substrate, and the PbTiO3 seed layer promoted the grain growth and influenced the crystal orientation of the films. With the annealing temperature and sintering time rising (from 600 °C for 1 h to 700 °C for 2 h) in the new method, the crystal orientation of PZT deposited on Pt substrate with PbTiO3 seed layer changed from (100) to (111), and the grain size increased from dozens to hundreds of nanometer. Meanwhile, its ferroelectric and dielectric properties were greatly improved with 2Pr from 10.78 to 42.12 μC/cm2and εr from 348 to 978, respectively.