Effect of Strain on Barium Titanate Epitaxial Films

Abstract:

Landau-Ginzburg free energy expression with the normalized coefficients is used to elucidate the phase transition properties of strained ferroelectric films. In particular, we investigate the need to include higher order free energy terms for epitaxial strained BaTiO3 thin films. Our study reveals that the inclusion of eighth-order expression into the free energy is crucial in determining the phase transition of highly-strained BaTiO3 epitaxial films normally grown on thick cubic substrates. The phase transition is found to be second order but the unstrained film undergoes the first order phase transition. On the order hand, the calculation based on the usual sixth-order Landau-Ginzburg expression show that the films have no phase transition, which is contrary to the experimental observations.

• Periodical: Key Engineering Materials (Volume 547)
• Pages: 139-144
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.4028/www.scientific.net/KEM.547.139
• Online since: April 2013
• Authors: Lye Hock Ong, A.M. Alrub, Khian Hooi Chew
• Keywords: Barium Titanate (BT), Epitaxial Film, Ferroelectric, Phase Transition, Strain

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