(100)-Oriented PZN-xpt Thin Films Grown On Lanio3 Seeding Layers

Relaxor ferroelectric (1-x)Pb(Zn1/3Nb2/3)O3-xPbTiO3 is attractive for many electromechanical transducer applications due to its very large piezoelectric responses, and high electromechanical coupling factor. An oriented PZN-xPT film is particularly desired to achieve further enhanced piezoelectric performance. However, it is difficult to obtain pure ferroelectric perovskite phase in a PZN-xPT thin film because of the preferential formation of detrimental pyrochlore phase. In this paper, perovskite PZN-xPT thin films were prepared by a sol-gel method on (100) Si substrates. A (100)-oriented perovskite LaNiO3 (LNO) thin film was deposited as both the bottom electrode and seeding layer; and a ZrO2 film was deposited as a buffer layer between the LNO film and the Si substrate. X-Ray Diffraction (XRD), and Scanning Electronic Microscopy (SEM) were used to examine the structure, orientation, and morphology of the PZN-xPT thin films. The dielectric and ferroelectric properties of the films were measured with an impedance analyzer and a standard ferroelectric testing system, respectively. The results showed that perovskite structure with (100) orientation was successfully obtained in the PZN-xPT films. The film exhibited a typical ferroelectric P-E hysteresis loop with a high remanent polarization.