Structural and electrical properties of epitaxial lead zirconate titanate
grown by pulsed laser deposition

Lead Zirconate Titanate (PZT) is a ferroelectric that has a high dielectric and piezoelectric constant. This material is being used in many commercial applications, such as sensors and actuators because of its excellent piezoelectric properties. However, thick PZT films with electrical properties matching the bulk counterpart are not easy to be prepared mostly due to crack formation, volatility of lead and lead oxide, and several other shortcomings of the thin film processing. To tackle these issues Pulsed Laser Depositions (PLD) technique was used. PLD is a promising technique for thick-PZT-film fabrication because it offers a high deposition rate (usually > 100 nm/h), high crystalline quality, right stoichiometry, as well as very good surface morphology which easy the fabrication of high-quality test structures devices plan-parallel capacitors.

The goal of this work was to grow an epitaxial film of PZT ceramics and compare their structural and piezoelectric properties with varying deposition parameters, such as the number of pulses, oxygen pressure, growth temperature, post-deposition annealing, etc., which can greatly affect the film properties.

General film properties, such as morphology and domain structure, were investigated firstly by Atomic Force Microscope and local Piezoelectric Force Microscopy module. Temperature-dependent piezoelectric properties were then investigated by AixaCCT setup in a temperature range between 300K and 500 K.