Ferroelectric and piezoelectric properties of Ba0.85Ca0.15Ti0.90Zr0.10O3 films in 200 nm thickness range

Abstract Lead‐free piezoelectric Ba 0.85 Ca 0.15 Ti 0.90 Zr 0.10 O 3 ( BCZT ) thin films were fabricated on Si/SiO 2 /TiO 2 /Pt (100) substrates following chemical solution deposition technique. Microstructure of the nano‐sized BCZT particles crystallized in the thin film was thoroughly characterized. Ferroelectric, dielectric and piezoelectric properties of the films were investigated in detail. The BCZT films annealed at 800°C temperature exhibited high remanent polarization of 25 ± 1 μC/cm 2 , energy density of 17 J/cm 3 , dielectric constant of 1550 ± 50 and dielectric tunability of 50%. Converse piezoelectric coefficients ( d 33 ) obtained from piezo‐response force microscopy ( PFM ) measurements on BCZT grains of different grain size (20‐100 nm) distributed on the BCZT 700 film varied widely from 90 to 230 pm/V. The same for BCZT 800 measured on different grain size (30‐130 nm) varied from 120 to 295 pm/V. These BCZT thin films with high dielectric, ferroelectric, and piezoelectric properties might be good alternative to the PZT films for thin film piezoelectric device applications.