Characterization of (100)-oriented 0.63BiMg1/2Ti1/2O3–0.37PbTiO3 piezoelectric films by a sol–gel process

• 63BiMg1/2Ti1/2O3–0.37PbTiO3 thin film was deposited via sol–gel method.
• High (100) orientation was obtained by introducing lead oxide seeding layers.
• The film shows good ferroelectric property with high direct current resistivity.
• High local piezoelectric coefficient of 90 pm/V was obtained for the film.

0.63BiMg1/2Ti1/2O3–0.37PbTiO3 (BMT–PT) thin films with thickness of 600 nm were synthesized on Pt(111)/Ti/SiO2/Si(111) substrates. Highly (100) preferential orientation of the BMT–PT thin films was obtained by introducing lead oxide seeding layers. Saturated polarization hysteresis loops with low leakage current were observed, showing a remanent polarization of 24 μC/cm2 and a coercive field of 54 kV/cm for the (100)-oriented BMT–PT thin films. The dielectric constant and loss for the thin films were 1060 and 0.06, respectively. The Curie temperature appeared at 415 °C. The local effective piezoelectric coefficient d33⁎ was approximately 90 pm/V at zero volt for films with (100) preferential orientation, which was much higher than the value (~ 50 pm/V) obtained from films with random orientation.