Structural characteristics of ferroelectric phase transformations in single-domain epitaxial films

Structural characteristics of phase transformations in epitaxial ferroelectric films are analyzed via a Landau-Devonshire thermodynamic formalism. It is shown that the phase transformation temperature, the lattice parameters, and the order of the phase transformation are a strong function of the misfit strain and are considerably different compared to unconstrained, unstressed single crystals of the same composition. Depending on the internal stress state, it is possible that the structural aspects of the paraelectric-ferroelectric phase transformation may be completely obscured in the presence of epitaxial strains. The thickness dependence of epitaxial stresses due to relaxation by misfit dislocations during film deposition is incorporated into the model using an "effective" substrate lattice parameter. There is a good quantitative agreement between the theoretical analysis and experimental observations reported in the literature on the variations in the lattice parameters and the phase transformation temperature with film thickness in epitaxial BaTiO3 films. (C) 2004 American Institute of Physics.