Highly preferred oriented lead barium titanate (Ph1-xBax)TiO3 thin film, with particular emphasis on (Pb0.5Ba0.5)TiO3, can be obtained by spin-coating on MgO (100) substrate by using the precursor sol, which was synthesized from acetylacetone chelating with titanium isopropoxide and ethylene glycol as a solvent, in the sol-gel process. Film thickness, pyrolysis temperature and heating rate were studied systemically to investigate their influences on the formation of preferred oriented thin films. The highly preferred (001)/(100) oriented thin film could be obtained by the pyrolysis of wet film at 500 degrees C and annealing at 600 degrees C at a slow heating rate of 5 degrees C/min. It is confirmed that the tetragonal perovskite structure of the titanate ceramic decreases with an increase of Ba content in (Pb1-xBax)TiO3. The (001)/(100) oriented films were synthesized from all compositions between x=0.2 and x=0.8, at a crystallization temperature of 600 degrees C. In particular, for the Ba content in the range of x=0.5 similar to 0.6 hiahly preferred (001)/(100) planes were observed. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V.All rights reserved.