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.