Dependence of texture development on thickness of single-annealed-layer insol-gel derived PZT thin films

PbZr0.5Ti0.5O3 thin films have been prepared on Pt (111)/Ti/SiO2/Si substra tes by a modified sol-gel technique. The PZT films were annealed layer by l ayer using a rapid thermal annealing (RTA) method during the spin-coating p rocess. A novel route was used to obtain PZT films with different single-an nealed-layer in thickness from the same precursor solution. It is found tha t the degree of (111) orientation of the films increases with the reduction thickness of single-annealed-layer. As the thickness of single-annealed-la yer drops to 40 nm, the film shows a high degree of (111) preferred orienta tion. The decrease of single-annealed-layer thickness also leads to the inc rease of the remanent polarization and the dielectric constant. (C) 2000 El sevier Science S.A. All rights reserved.