Characteristics of Sputtered Lead Zirconate Titanate Thin Films With Different Layer Configurations and Large Thickness

To evaluate the characteristics of Pb(Zr,Ti)O
₃
(PZT) thin films (about 10 μm thick) with three different sputtering configurations-single-layer (SL) deposition, multilayer (ML) deposition with internal electrodes, and multistep (MS) deposition-were prepared. The SL films exhibited poorer dielectric characteristics than the ML and MS films. The reliability and piezoelectric characteristics were especially high in the MS film, with an e
_{31, f}
constant of -9.5 C · m
^-2
. To investigate the porosity of the films, reconstructed 3-D SEM technique is employed. Reconstructed 3-D SEM images revealed decreased void densities in the ML and MS films, which improved their performance. The MS configuration provided the best dielectric and piezoelectric performance of PZT films.