The purpose of this paper was to analyze structural and optical properties of gadolinia-doped ceria (GDC, Ce0.9Gd0.1O1.95) thin films. At first the ceria-gadolinia multilayer sandwich systems (4-12 layers) were deposited using reactive magnetron sputtering in the O2/Ar gas mixtures. The films were formed with ≈ 90% ceria and ≈ 10% gadolinia. The GDC thin films deposited on Si (111) substrate were annealed at 600• C for 1 h in air. The thickness of the formed GDC multilayer systems was about 600 nm. The GDC thin film microstructure was investigated by X-ray diffraction and scanning electron microscopy. The texture coefficient T c(hkl) of GDC films was evaluated from the X-ray diffraction patterns. The crystallite size of GDC films was estimated from the Scherrer equation. Optical properties of the annealed GDC thin films were examined using a laser ellipsometer. The results show that the number of layers has the influence on GDC thin film formation. As follows from the analysis of structural and optical properties of GDC 12 layer system annealed at 600• C for one hour in air has the highest refractive index n = 2.17.

The chemical reactions are widely used for the layers of different composition formation. However, synthesis mechanism is a complicated process in thin films/layers system, and is not completely studied. The purpose of this paper was to analyze the kinetics of chemical compounds in reaction, to produce ZrO 2 thin films using arc evaporation and annealing (post-deposition), and to analyze them. The pure zirconium (Zr) and zirconium nitride (ZrN) were deposited using arc evaporation. 10% mol of aluminum was evaporated on a few Zr films. All deposited films were annealed in the air atmosphere gradually changing the temperature from 400 • C to 1100 • C in order to produce ZrO2 films. The formation processes of the new phase were studied. Activation energy of the reactions was calculated. Structural properties were measured using X-ray diffraction, optical properties-using ellipsometry. Tetragonal phase of ZrO2 was obtained in the annealing process of ZrO2/Al thin film in the air atmosphere of 800 • C.

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Lead zirconate titanate (PZT) is a widely used material with applications ranging from piezoelectric sensors to developing non-volatile memory devices. Pb(ZrxTi1−x)O3 films were deposited by DC reactive magnetron sputtering at a temperature range of (500–600) °C. X-ray diffraction (XRD) indicated the perovskite phase formation in samples synthesized at 550 °C, which agrees with Raman data analysis. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) measurements supplemented XRD data and showed the formation of dense PZT microstructures. Further X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) analysis confirmed that the Zr/Ti ratio corresponds to the Pb(Zr0.58Ti0.42)O3 content. Dielectric measurement of the same sample indicated dielectric permittivity to be around 150 at room temperature, possibly due to the defects in the structure. P-E measurements show ferroelectric behavior at a temperature range of (50–180) °C. It was found that the remnant polarization increased with temperature, and at the same time, coercive field values decreased. Such behavior can be attributed to energetically deep defects.