Effects of thickness on switching current for (Pb 0.97 La 0.02 )(Zr 0.95 Ti 0.05 )O 3 antiferroelectric films under thermo‐electric coupled field

Homogeneous and compact antiferroelectric (AFE) (Pb, La)(Zr, Ti)O3 thick films in large area with different thicknesses were successfully fabricated by the sol–gel processing on Pt(111)/Ti/SiO2/Si(100) substrates. The characteristics of switching current of samples with different thicknesses under thermo-electric coupled field were investigated in detail. The experimental result shows that the peak of switching current density increased with the increase of temperature in three samples. Moreover, it is found that the thickness of the films has a big effect on the current density. Therefore, the peak of switching current density increased with increasing in the thickness at the same temperatures. The maximum switching current density of film with the thickness of 2254 nm is 4.35 × 10−5A/cm2. These results are quite important and necessary for design and preparation of the AFE materials applied on high sensitivity and intelligent micro-sensors and micro-actuators.