A new and rapid heat-treatment process for fabricating lead zirconate titanate thin film

A new and rapid heat-treatment process for fabricating lead zirconate titanate, Pb(Zr 0.52 Ti 0.48 )O 3 (PZT), ferroelectric thin films has been developed. The main equipment of this heat-treatment process is termed caterpillar furnace. The furnace is divided into three parts, including preheating, heating and cooling. This process offers several advantages over conventional thermal annealing, including rapid heat-treatment process (< 10 min every layer film), pure film structure and better reproducibility. The precursor solution was synthesized by mixing and reacting lead acetate trihydrate, titanium isopropoxide, tetrabutyl zirconate, acetylacetone and 2-methoxyethanol. The precursor was investigated by DSC-TG, and the PZT thin film was investigated by XRD. XRD analysis shows that the thin films possess single-phase perovskite-type structure. A dielectric constant and loss tangent of thin film were measured about 231 and 0.02 at 10 kHz, respectively. The capacitance-voltage (C-V) and hysteresis loops of PZT films showed that the films possess fine ferroelectric properties.