Thickness effect on the dielectric, ferroelectric, and piezoelectric properties of ferroelectric lead zirconate titanate thin filmsHighly ͑100͒-textured Pb͑Zr 0.53 Ti 0.47 ͒O 3 films ͑Lotgering factors Ն90%͒ with thicknesses ranging from 20 to 260 nm were grown on platinized Si substrates using sol-gel deposition. Ferroelectric hysteresis, low field dielectric permittivity, and nonlinear dielectric response as well as converse longitudinal piezoelectric response ͑d 33,f ͒ of the ultrathin films were studied at 1 kHz. The measurements revealed the existence of a critical film thickness, ϳ50 nm, below which the extrinsic contributions to the dielectric response are almost completely suppressed. Piezoelectric response of the films also showed a significant ͑ϳ50%͒ drop at the same critical thickness. Due to the columnar microstructure of these films the critical dimension of the ferroelectric is represented by the thickness rather than the lateral grain size, where the latter is invariant across the samples. The critical thickness led also to a deviation of the thickness dependence of the dielectric permittivity from the in-series capacitors model frequently representing "interfacial dead layers." The critical size is attributed to significant reduction in domain wall population and/or mobility in films thinner than ϳ50 nm.

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A study on the effects of the residual strain in Pb(Zr0.52Ti0.48)O3 (PZT) thin films on the ferroelectric and piezoelectric properties is presented. Epitaxial (001)-oriented PZT thin film capacitors are sandwiched between SrRuO3 electrodes. The thin film stacks are grown on different substrate-buffer-layer combinations by pulsed laser deposition. Compressive or tensile strain caused by the difference in thermal expansion of the PZT film and substrate influences the ferroelectric and piezoelectric properties. All the PZT stacks show ferroelectric and piezoelectric behavior that is consistent with the theoretical model for strained thin films in the ferroelectric r-phase. We conclude that clamped (001) oriented Pb(Zr0.52Ti0.48)O3 thin films strained by the substrate always show rotation of the polarization vector.

We observed that electric field induces phase transition from tetragonal to rhombohedral in polycrystalline morphotropic lead zirconate titanate (PZT) films, as reported in 2011 for bulk PZT. Moreover, we evidenced that this field-induced phase transition is strongly correlated with PZT film piezoelectric properties, that is to say the larger the phase transition, the larger the longitudinal piezoelectric coefficient d 33,eff . Although d 33,eff is already comprised between as 150 to 170 pm/V, our observation suggests that one could obtain larger d 33,eff values, namely 250 pm/V, by optimizing the field-induced phase transition thanks to composition fine tuning.

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