Decreased crystallization temperature and improved leakage properties of BiFeO3 thin films induced by Bi2O3 seed layer

•Bi2O3 seed layer decreases the crystallization temperature of BFO film to 500 °C.•The leakage property of BFO film can be improved greatly with Bi2O3 seed layer.•Bi2O3 seed layer can enhance permittivity and decrease dielectric loss of BFO film.

By using solution coating technique, BiFeO3 thin films with and without Bi2O3 seed layer were prepared on Pt/Ti/SiO2/Si substrate. It is found that the Bi2O3 seed layer can decrease greatly the crystallization temperature of films and can induce {110} and {1¯10} textures in the films. The leakage current density of BiFeO3 film with the seed layer is roughly about 1/100 of that of the film without seed layer at 100 kV/cm electric field. The conduction mechanism is found to be Ohmic in the low electric field region for both the BiFeO3 films. In high electric field region, the conduction mechanism for BiFeO3 film without the seed layer satisfies the trap-filled-limited conduction model, while that for BiFeO3 film with the seed layer is corresponds to the conduction model of modified interface limited Schottky emission. Moreover, the dielectric property of BiFeO3 thin film can be improved greatly by the Bi2O3 seed layer.