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Updated: Mar 29, 2026
Chemical Synthesis of Porous Barium Titanate Thin Film and Thermal Stabilization of Ferroelectric Phase by Porosity-Induced Strain
Published on: March 27, 2018
Engineering Polymorphic Phase Boundary in Aerosol-Deposited Ba(ZrxTi1-x)O3 Thick Films for Large Transverse
Jinlin Yang1,2,3, Long Teng1,2,3, Zhenwei Shen1,2,3
1Key Laboratory of Low Dimensional Materials and Application Technology of Ministry of Education, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Xiangtan University, Xiangtan 411105, China.
Abstract:
Conventional deposition techniques hinder the integration of high-performance lead-free piezoelectric thick films on silicon substrates due to slow growth kinetics and complex processing. Herein, dense, crack-free Ba(ZrxTi1-x)O3 (BZT, x = 0-0.10) thick films (~2 μm) were fabricated via aerosol deposition (AD) followed by annealing, forming a nanocrystalline microstructure with an average grain size of ~78 nm. Compositional tuning showed optimal electromechanical performance at x = 0.03, attributed to the coexistence of tetragonal and orthorhombic phases near room temperature that reduce the phase transformation energy barrier. The optimized BZT films exhibit excellent electrical properties: saturation polarization of 31.3 μC/cm2, relative permittivity of 430, dielectric tunability figure of merit (FOM) of 155, and a large transverse piezoelectric coefficient |e31,f| of 1.01 C/m2-comparable to textured magnetron-sputtered BaTiO3 films but with higher deposition efficiency. This work provides a high-throughput route for fabricating piezoelectric thick films, highlighting the potential of compositionally engineered AD-processed BZT in lead-free MEMS applications.
