Epitaxial ferroelectric Pb(Mg1/3Nb2/3)O 3-PbTiO3 thin films on La0.7Sr 0.3MnO3 bottom electrode

Epitaxial (001)-oriented 0.7Pb(Mg<inf>0.33</inf>Nb<inf>0.67</inf>)O <inf>3</inf>-0.3PbTiO<inf>3</inf> (PMN-PT) thin films were deposited by pulsed laser deposition on vicinal SrTiO<inf>3</inf> (001) substrates using La <inf>0.7</inf>Sr<inf>0.3</inf>MnO<inf>3</inf> as bottom electrode. Detailed microstructural investigations of these films were carried out using X-ray diffraction (XRD), atomic force microscopy (AFM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Polarization-field hysteresis curves were measured at room temperature. Spontaneous polarization P <inf>s</inf>, remnant polarization P <inf>r</inf> and coercive voltage V <inf>c</inf> were found to be 25 μC/cm², 15 μC/cm² and 0.81 V, respectively. Field dependent dielectric constant measurements exhibited butterfly shaped curves, indicating the true ferroelectric nature of these films at room temperature. The dielectric constant and the dielectric loss at 100 kHz were found to be 238 and 0.14, respectively. The local piezoelectric properties of PMN-PT films were investigated by piezoelectric force microscopy and were found to exhibit a local piezoelectric coefficient of 7.8 pm/V. © 2014 Springer Science+Business Media New York.