Citation:
R Fernández, S Holgado, Z Huang, M L Calzada, J. Ricote; Use of the solvent chemistry for the control of the critical thickness of PbTiO3
ultrathin films. Journal of Materials research, 2010, vol 25, no5, pp.890-898.
Abstract:
The preparation of high-quality ferroelectric PbTiO3-based ultrathin films by
chemical solution deposition. using a diol-based sol-gel method, has proved to
be successful. However, there is a critical thickness below which the films
break up into isolated structures According to previous studies, above a certain
grain size to thickness ratio a microstructural instability occurs and the
coatings are no longer continuous. We explore the use of the solvent chemistry
to control this phenomenon, as an alternative to the more conventional variation
of the crystallization parameters. The use of diols with short C chain lengths
leads to films with smaller gram sizes, whose critical thicknesses are lower. A
reduction from 40 to 15 nm is achieved by reducing the number of C of the chol
used from 5 to 2. A critical value of G/t < 5.0 is necessary to obtain
continuous ultrathin films with the processing conditions used
