Rapid thermal processing of lead zirconate titanate thin films on Pt-GaAs substrates based on a novel 1,1,1-tris(hydroxymethyl)ethane sol-gel route

Thin films of lead zirconate titanate (PZT) having a nominal composition of Pb(Zr0.53Ti0.47)O-3 have been prepared on platinized GaAs (Pt-GaAs) substrates using a new 1,1,1-tris(hydroxymethyl)ethane (THOME) based sol-gel technique. Rapid thermal processing (RTP) techniques were used to decompose the sol-gel layer to PZT in an effort to avoid problems of Ga/As outdiffusion into the PZT. A crystalline PZT film was produced by firing the sol-gel coatings at 600 or 650 degrees C for a dwell time of 1 s using RTP. A single deposition of the precursor sol resulted in a 0.4 mu m thick PZT film. X-ray diffraction measurements revealed that the films possessed a high degree of (111) preferred orientation, Measured average values of remanent polarization (P-r) and coercive field (E-c) for the film annealed at 650 degrees C for 1 s were 24 mu C/cm(2) and 32 kV/cm, respectively, together with a low frequency dielectric constant and loss tangent at 1 kHz of 950 and 0.02, These values are comparable to those obtainable on platinized silicon (Pt-Si) substrates using conventional sol-gel methods, and are an improvement on PZT thin films prepared on platinized GaAs using an earlier sol-gel route based on 1,3-propanediol.