Lead-based titanate ferroelectric thin films fabricated by a sol–gel technique Review Article

Because of its excellent ferroelectric properties including piezoelectricity, thermoelectricity and photoelectricity, the lead-based titanate ferroelectric thin films have been widely used in the high-tech fields such as microelectronics, optoelectronics, integrated optics and microelectro-mechanical system. As a significant technique in preparing thin films, the sol–gel method has achieved great success in preparing the lead-based titanate ferroelectric thin films. In this paper, the sol–gel fundamental, deposition process and the advantage of sol–gel technique in fabricating ferroelectric thin films were concluded. The materials selection, ferroelectric properties, application fields of lead titanate, lead calcium titanate, lead zirconate titanate, some other lead-based titanate thin films by sol–gel were reviewed, and the influencing factors on the properties of ferroelectric films were discussed.