Structural and Electrical Properties of BiFeO₃ Fabricated on C-Sapphire Substrates Using a Double SrTiO₃/TiO₂ Buffer Layer

Abstract:

BiFeO₃ (BFO) thin films were deposited by pulsed laser deposition (PLD) on c-plane sapphire substrates with a double SrTiO₃/TiO₂ oxide buffer layer grown by laser molecular beam epitaxy (laser-MBE). X-ray diffraction data showed the highly (111)-oriented perovskite phase in the BFO films with SrTiO₃/TiO₂ buffer layers, compared to the polycrystalline thin film grown directly on sapphire substrates. The epitaxial BiFeO₃ thin films inherit its orientation from the underlying SrTiO₃ buffer layer and have two in-plane orientations: (111)[1-10] BiFeO₃ // (0001)[1-100] Al₂O₃ plus a twin variant related by a 180° in-plane rotation. The BiFeO₃ thin films with the buffer layer show an out-of-plane remanent polarization of 81.5μC/cm², which is comparable to the remanent polarization of BiFeO₃ prepared on other single crystal substrates. Electrical measurements demonstrate that the BiFeO₃ thin films with the buffer layer exhibit excellent fatigue endurance and a low leakage current density relative to the films without the buffer layer. These results indicate that the (111)-oriented BiFeO₃ films with favorable electrical performance could be epitaxially grown on sapphire substrates using the double SrTiO₃/TiO₂ buffer layer.

• Periodical: Materials Science Forum (Volume 687)
• Pages: 385-390
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.4028/www.scientific.net/MSF.687.385
• Online since: June 2011
• Authors: Xiu Wei Liao, Jun Zhu, Wen Bo Luo, Lan Zhong Hao
• Keywords: BiFeO₃, Buffer Layer, Electrical Performance, Structure

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