Solid-State Electronics, Vol.75, 6-12, 2012
On the research of lead-free material challengers for PZT replacement
This paper reports a study of Ba0.9Sr0.1TiO3 and BaTi0.98Sn0.02O3 thin films elaborated by a sol-gel route and deposited on Pt/Ti/SiO2/Si substrates. The annealing temperatures were 750 degrees C, 850 degrees C and 950 degrees C. An increase of the average size of grains was observed, from 60 nm at 750 degrees C to 110 nm at 950 degrees C and from 70 nm at 750 degrees C to 150 nm at 950 degrees C, for BST and BTS respectively, as well as an increase of the dielectric constant and remnant polarization. We have also shown that there are benefits for electrical properties to decrease the annealing time. Despite its non-significant piezoelectric and ferroelectric properties, BTS gives good dielectric properties. Under our optimized annealing conditions, we gave the evidence that ferroelectric BST is a good challenger to replace PZT in various applications, except in piezoelectrics, as the electrical properties measured on our thin films were particularly significant for applications in electronic devices. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.