Influence of annealing treatments for ZnO-doped Zr0.8Sn0.2TiO4 thin films by RF magnetron sputtering

Zirconium tin titanium oxide doped 1 wt.% ZnO thin films on n-type Si substrate were deposited by rf magnetron sputtering at a fixed rf power of 300 W, a substrate temperature of 450 °C, a deposition pressure of 5 mTorr and an Ar/O2 ratio of 100/0 with various annealing temperatures and annealing times. Electrical properties and microstructures of 1 wt.% ZnO-doped (Zr0.8Sn0.2)TiO4 thin films prepared by rf magnetron sputtering on n-type Si(100) substrates at different annealing temperatures (500 °C–700 °C) and annealing times (2 h–6 h) have been investigated. The structural and morphological characteristics analyzed by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and atomic force microscope (AFM) were sensitive to the treatment conditions such as annealing temperature and annealing time. At an annealing temperature of 600 °C and an annealing time of 6 h, the ZnO-doped (Zr0.8Sn0.2)TiO4 thin films possess a dielectric constant of 46 (at f = 10 MHz), a dissipation factor of 0.059 (at f = 10 MHz), and a low leakage current density of 3.8 × 10− 9 A/cm2 at an electrical field of 1 kV/cm.