Electrical properties of lead zirconate titanate thick films prepared by hybrid sol-gel method with multiple infiltration steps

High-quality ferroelectric thick films are required for various piezoelectric applications including high-frequency transducers and microelectromechanical systems. In this work, we report the fabrication of dense crack-free lead zirconate fitanate (PZT) thick films on Pt-coated Si substrates using commercial PZT powder dispersed in a sol-gel precursor solution without viscous additives. Prearmealed films were infiltrated with the same solution and heat treated at 500 degrees C. Dielectric and ferroelectric properties of the films are found to be strongly dependent on the number of infiltration steps reaching sufficiently high values: dielectric constant similar to 2270 and remanent polarization similar to 35 mu LC cm(-2). Moderate coercive field of 60 kV cm(-1) and low dielectric loss similar to 0.04 are observed in these films. Effective longitudinal piezoelectric coefficient d(33) also depends on the number of infiltrations demonstrating remanent value of similar to 80 put V-1 for eight infiltration steps. The results show the suitability of hybrid sol-gel method for the fabrication of PZT thick films for dielectric and piezoelectric applications. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.