Characterization and microstructure of highly preferred oriented lead barium titanate thin films on MgO (100) by sol-gel process

Highly preferred oriented lead barium titanate (Pb1−x,Bax)TiO3 thin film, with particular emphasis on (Pb0.5,Ba0.5)TiO3, can be obtained by spin-coating on MgO (100) substrate by using the precursor sol, which was synthesized from acetylacetone chelating with titanium isopropoxide and ethylene glycol as a solvent, in the sol-gel process. Film thickness, pyrolysis temperature and heating rate were studied systemically to investigate their influences on the formation of preferred oriented thin films. The highly preferred (001)/(100) oriented thin film could be obtained by the pyrolysis of wet film at 500 °C and annealing at 600 °C at a slow heating rate of 5 °C/min. It is confirmed that the tetragonal perovskite structure of the titanate ceramic decreases with an increase of Ba content in (Pb1−x,Bax)TiO3. The (001)/(100) oriented films were synthesized from all compositions between x = 0.2 and x = 0.8, at a crystallization temperature of 600 °C. In particular, for the Ba content in the range of x = 0.5∼0.6, highly preferred (001)/(100) planes were observed.