Electrohydrodynamic jet printing of PZT thick film micro-scale structures

This paper reports the use of a printing technique, called electrohydrodynamic jet printing, for producing PZT thick film micro-scale structures without additional material removing processes. The PZT powder was ball-milled and the effect of milling time on the particle size was examined. This ball-milling process can significantly reduce the PZT particle size and help to prepare stable composite slurry suitable for the E-Jet printing. The PZT micro-scale structures with different features were produced. The PZT lines with different widths and separations were fabricated through the control of the E-Jet printing parameters. The widths of the PZT lines were varied from 80 μm to 200 μm and the separations were changed from 5 μm to 200 μm. In addition, PZT walled structures were obtained by multi-layer E-Jet printing. The E-Jet printed PZT thick films exhibited a relative permittivity (ɛr) of ∼233 and a piezoelectric constant (d33, f) of ∼66 pC N−1

Misfit strain dependence of ferroelectric and piezoelectric properties of clamped (001) epitaxial Pb(Zr0.52,Ti0.48)O3 thin films \ud

A study on the effects of the residual strain in Pb(Zr0.52Ti0.48)O3 (PZT) thin films on the ferroelectric and piezoelectric properties is presented. Epitaxial (001)-oriented PZT thin film capacitors are sandwiched between SrRuO3 electrodes. The thin film stacks are grown on different substrate-buffer-layer combinations by pulsed laser deposition. Compressive or tensile strain caused by the difference in thermal expansion of the PZT film and substrate influences the ferroelectric and piezoelectric properties. All the PZT stacks show ferroelectric and piezoelectric behavior that is consistent with the theoretical model for strained thin films in the ferroelectric r-phase. We conclude that clamped (001) oriented Pb(Zr0.52Ti0.48)O3 thin films strained by the substrate always show rotation of the polarization vecto

Characterisation of sol-gel PZT films on Pt-coated substrates

A conventional sol-gel process was used to spin-cast PZT films on oxidized Si wafers coated with sputtered Pt layers. After annealing at 550 degrees C-800 degrees C, the resulting perovskite-type PZT films showed different textures and surface morphologies, depending on whether or not a Ti adhesion layer was used. If a Ti layer was present, Ti diffusion into and through the Pt film leads to a compound Pt3Ti, which facilitates crystallization of the perovskite PZT phase; without Ti, crystallization is more difficult and occurs via the growth of dendritic crystallites. Several optical and electrical properties of the PZT films have been measured; the first results indicate high dielectric constants ( epsilon approximately=480) and acceptable ferroelectric behaviour