Abstract
The refractory nature of BaTiO3 leads to limited densification and grain growth for films processed at low temperatures and a modest nonlinear dielectric response due to a marked sensitivity to physical scale and material quality. Adding liquid-forming sintering AIDS, common in bulk ceramics, to thin films enhances mass transport, leading to enhanced grain growth at lower temperatures. This work explores the effectiveness of a sputtered CuO buffer layer with BaO-B2O3 (BBO) fluxes to engineer the microstructure of BaTiO3 films. Grain size and homogeneity increase in the presence of even a ∼1 nm CuO layer. In general, grain size increases from 75 to 370 nm with an addition of 2.2% BBO and 8 nm CuO. Room temperature capacitance in fluxed films increases by a factor of 5 over pure films, and ferroelectric phase transitions are clearly observable in dielectric measurements. CuO-BBO proves effective on (0001) Al2O3 and (100) MgO substrates, although all microstructures are notably finer for the latter.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 1018-1026 |
Number of pages | 9 |
Journal | Journal of Materials Research |
Volume | 31 |
Issue number | 8 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Apr 28 2016 |
All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes
- General Materials Science
- Condensed Matter Physics
- Mechanics of Materials
- Mechanical Engineering