Kinetic aspects of the formation of seeded lead zirconate titanate thin films

The crystallization kinetics and microstructure development of PZT thin fil ms on platinum passivated silicon substrates prepared using different conce ntration of PZT seeds dispersed in PZT sols are studied. TEM analysis showe d that perovskite seeds did not dissolve in the precursor sol but maintaine d a crystalline state before annealing. It was shown that using perovskite PZT nanopowders as seeds results in the crystallization of a single perovsk ite phase in the PZT film either at lower temperatures or at shorter anneal ing times. The seeded PZT films exhibited enhanced crystallization kinetics and the overall activation energy for the perovskite crystallization war r educed from 219 kJ/mol (unseeded) to 174 kJ/mol for 1wt% seeded PZT film an d to 146 kJ/mol for 5 wt% seeded films. These results support the statement that the presence of nanometric PZT seed particles lowers the activation e nergy needed to reach the critical nuclei size for the crystallization proc ess.