The phase formation process of Bi0.5(Na0.8K0.2)0.5TiO3 thin films prepared using the sol-gel method

Lead-free Bi0.5(Na0.8K0.2)0.5TiO3 (abbreviated as BNKT) thin films were grown on Pt(111)/Ti/SiO2/Si substrates using a sol-gel/spin coating technique and were then annealed at different temperatures (350 °C, 550 °C, 750 °C and 850 °C). Analysis of the XRD patterns and FT-IR spectra were used to determine the main reactions and the phase formation process of BNKT thin films during the sol-gel process. The results show that the dielectric constant of the thin films attains a maximum at a set temperature and then decreases at higher annealing temperatures, which can be attributed to phase formation and transformation. Moreover, the morphologies of the BNKT thin films improve with the increase in grain size and the formation of distinct grain boundaries. Furthermore, through increasing the pH of the precursor solutions, the size of the sol-gel colloidal particles increases slightly and the grains formed from the corresponding solutions tend to be small and uniform.