Effects of Thermal Annealing on Lead Zirconate Titanate Thin Film Capacitors with Platinum Electrodes.

The effects of thermal annealing on Pb(Zr_0.3Ti_0.7)O₃ ferroelectric thin film capacitors derived by chemical solution deposition with Pt electrodes were investigated. Sample-averaged structural information of the capacitors with different thermal histories was obtained from fitting the X-ray specular reflectivity using a homogeneous stratified multilayered structure model of Pt/PZT/Pt/TiO_x/SiO₂. Electrical measurements showed a remarkable remanent polarization reduction of up to 8.8% and an increase of the dielectric constant at low biases with increasing annealing time from 5 to 10 min. However, no evident change to the fatigue endurance was found except for the reduced initial remanent polarization. The effects of the thermal annealing on the electrical propel-ties of the ferroelectric capacitors are discussed in correlation with the structural changes in the ferroelectric thin films. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]