Effect of doped concentration on dielectric properties of Mn and Y alternately doped BST films

•Optimizing doped concentration can achieve appropriate crystallization.•Alternate doping can achieve dense nodular microstructures.•Alternate doping may realize low loss and high figure of merit.•Dielectric properties depend on doped concentration.

Mn and Y alternately doped Ba0.6Sr0.4TiO3 (Mn/YBST) films were prepared by improved sol–gel method on Pt/Ti/SiO2/Si substrates. The effect of different doped concentrations (0.5%, 1.0%, 1.5%, 2.0% and 2.5%) on crystallization and dielectric properties of BST films was studied by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), atomic force microscopy (AFM) and HP4294A. All films grow along (110) orientation, possessed dense nodular microstructure, exhibited decreased grain size and improved morphologies with smaller average roughness. As a result, the doping behavior changes from donor doping to acceptor doping and again to donor doping and the dielectric constants and the dielectric losses tend to decrease with increasing doped concentration. 1.5% corresponds to the optimized dielectric properties with the dielectric losses of about 0.007 and the figure of merit (FOM) of 38.83 at 100 kHz. Also, the related mechanisms and the dielectric properties at microwave frequencies are discussed.