By changing the electrode combination of Pt and LaNiO3 (LNO), four capacitor types of Pt/PZT/Pt/Si, Pt/LNO/PZT/Pt/Si, Pt/LNO/PZT/LNO/Pt/Si, and Pt/PZT/LNO/Pt/Si, were prepared to investigate the fatigue and hysteresis characteristics of the sol-gel-derived Pb(Zr0.53Ti0.47)O3 (PZT) ferroelectric thin films. Among them, the (100)- and (001)-oriented PZT films were grown on the (100)-textured LNO electrode, but randomly oriented films were obtained on the Pt electrode. It was found that the use of LNO bottom electrode would improve the fatigue property quite significantly, but only the capacitor with LNO as both top and bottom electrodes is shown to be fatigue-free up to 1011 cycles, and the shapes of the hysteresis loop almost unchanged after the fatigue test.

Highly (100)-oriented LaNiO3(LNO) thin films were grown on Si, SiO2/Si, Pt/SiSiO2/Si, as well as glass substrates by rf magnetron sputtering deposition at substrate temperatures ranging from 150 to 500 °C. As-deposited LNO films are metallic; those prepared at substrate temperature ∼150–250 °C have a resistivity of 0.4–0.5 mΩ cm and can be used as the bottom electrode for the fabrication of integrated ferroelectric capacitors on Si. A subsequent deposition of sol-gel derived Pb(Zr0.53Ti0.47)O3 (PZT) thin film on the LNO-coated substrate was also found to have a significant (100)- and (001)-oriented texture. The ferroelectric capacitor fabricated from these films displays a good P–E hysteresis characteristic.