Abstract
Lead zirconate titanate (PZT) films prepared from a new chelate-based precursor solution were dip-coated onto ITO-coated glass substrates. ITO has been chosen to preserve the transparency necessary for the specific applications. The effects of chemistry and processing conditions are explored in solution-derived morphotropic composition PZT films. The PZT transformed directly from the amorphous phase into perovskite, without going through a pyrochlore intermediate stage. The PZT phase crystallized at significantly low temperature of 450 °C following conventional heat-treatment without necessitating special irradiations, rapid thermal annealing and/or particular substrates. Ferroelectric and dielectric properties were measured and compared for PZT films processed from two sol-gel precursor systems. A remanent polarization, Pr, of 7.5 μC cm−2, coercive field, Ec, of 18.7 kV cm−1, dielectric constant, εr, of 739, and loss value, tan(δ), of 0.04 were measured for PZT film post-annealed at 700 °C.
•PZT thin films have been successfully prepared from a new chelate-based chemistry solution.•The use of acetoin as a new ligand lowered the crystallization temperature of the PZT by 150 °C.•The presence of an ITO buffer layer beneath the PZT film, totally suppressed the pyrochlore phase.•Direct deposition on glass plates resulted in mixed-phase films with non-uniform depth profile.•The perovskite phase directly nucleated from the amorphous matrix.