Maurya, K K and Halder, S K and Sen, Suchitra and Bose, Ankita and Bysakh, Sandip (2014) High resolution X-ray and electron microscopy characterization of PZT thin films prepared by RF magnetron sputtering. Applied Surface Science, 313. pp. 196-206. ISSN 0169-4332

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Abstract

Pb(Zr0.52TiO0.48)O-3 (PZT) thin films grown on Pt/TiO2/SiO2/Si(1 0 0) substrates in the thickness range of similar to 30-550 nm by radio frequency (RF) magnetron sputtering method under different sputtering pressures were studied in the present work. High resolution grazing incidence X-ray diffraction method for residual stress and electron microscopy, particularly cross sectional transmission electron microscopy (XTEM), were used to identify the crystalline phases, and structure of the thin films at the nano-scale. Microstructure of the ultrathin films in <50 nm thickness range, consists predominantly of para-electric, oxygen deficient pyrochlore phase of Pb2Ti2O6 structure co-existing with ferroelectric perovskite PZT phase in tetragonal form. In films with thickness around 500 nm, sputtering pressure shows a strong influence on the purity of PZT phase grown. High resolution X-ray diffraction method for wafer curvature measurement and Stoney's equation were used to evaluate the biaxial stress in the films. It is found that the ultrathin films are compressively stressed with high magnitude of the order of 2 GPa which gets reduced with increasing film thickness. In the thickness range of similar to 500 nm, at an optimum sputtering pressure of 4.5 Pa, the stress becomes tensile in nature with a small magnitude of 2.3 MPa. At this pressure, the film consists of almost pure perovskite phase and comparatively better electrical characteristics. X-ray reflectometry study indicates very low density of PZT films with an interlayer formed at the interface with Pt. XTEM study throws valuable insight into the nano-scale structure and reveals the presence of nano-porosity along the interface as well as within the film microstructure. This has been attributed to the observed interface roughness, reduced density, tensile residual stress as well as the poor ferroelectric properties encountered. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Item Type:	Article
Subjects:	Microstructure and Characterization
Divisions:	UNSPECIFIED
Depositing User:	Bidhan Chaudhuri
Date Deposited:	17 Nov 2014 09:51
Last Modified:	25 Nov 2014 10:14
URI:	http://cgcri.csircentral.net/id/eprint/2529

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