Low-temperature processing of Pb(Zr0.53,Ti0.43)O3 thin films by sol-gel casting

This paper focuses on a new class of processing for the low-temperature deposition of relatively thick films. We propose a new process of sol-gel casting which involves the dispersion of fine crystalline particles in a sol-gel derived precursor solution followed by casting and annealing at relatively low temperatures. In this study, we describe the basic concepts for optimizing the process parameters. As a result, dense ferroelectric PZT(Pb(Zr-0.53,Ti-0.43)O-3) films with thickness up to 9 mum were deposited by up to six coating operations (1.5 mum/one coating operation). The PZT thick film deposited under optimized process parameters exhibited relatively good ferroelectricity (remanent polarization of 12 muC/cm(2) and coercive field of 12 kV/cm) and a good dielectric property (relative permittivity of about 1400).