• Guerin, S.
• Whittle, K. R.
• Pasha, M.
• Han, Y.
• Anderson, P. S.
• Hayden, B. E.
• Reaney, I. M.

Abstract

<jats:p>Synthesis of Pb(Zr<jats:sub>1–<jats:italic>x</jats:italic></jats:sub>Ti<jats:italic><jats:sub>x</jats:sub></jats:italic>)O<jats:sub>3</jats:sub> (PZT) on a single substrate using a high-throughput molecular-beam epitaxy technique was demonstrated. In situ synthesis of crystalline PZT at elevated substrate temperatures could not be achieved, as reevaporation of Pb (PbO) occurred and the partial pressure of O<jats:sub>2</jats:sub> was insufficient to prevent formation of a PbPt<jats:italic><jats:sub>x</jats:sub></jats:italic> phase during deposition. Instead, ex situ postdeposition annealing was performed on PZT deposited at room temperature. Dense single phase PZT was prepared with a compositional range of 0.1 &gt; <jats:italic>x</jats:italic> &gt; 0.9, for film thicknesses up to 800 nm. Transmission electron microscopy revealed the grain size increased from 50 nm to ∼0.5 μm with increasing Zr-concentration and became more columnar. Raman, x-ray diffraction, and scanning electron microscopy/energy dispersive spectroscopy results revealed a morphotropic phase boundary between rhombohedral and tetragonal phases occurred at <jats:italic>x</jats:italic> ∼0.4 rather than at <jats:italic>x</jats:italic> = 0.47 in bulk ceramics. This was attributed to clamping arising from mismatch in thermal expansion between the film and substrate.</jats:p>

Topics

• Deposition
• grain
• grain size
• phase
• scanning electron microscopy
• x-ray diffraction
• transmission electron microscopy
• thermal expansion
• annealing
• ceramic
• phase boundary
• spectroscopy