0.67Pb(Mg1/3Nb2/3)O3–0.33PbTiO3 thin films derived from RF magnetron sputtering

Lead magnesium niobate–lead titanate (0.67Pb(Mg1/3Nb2/3)O3–0.33PbTiO3, PMN–PT) thin films have been successfully deposited on Pt/Ti/SiO2/Si substrates by RF magnetron sputtering. Annealing at 550 °C led to a well established perovskite structure. The annealed films exhibited well-defined hysteresis loops, with a respective remanent polarization (2Pr) of 27.4 μC/cm2 and coercive field (2Ec) of 58.6 kV/cm at an applied electric field of 250 KV/cm at room temperature. A dielectric constant of 947 and a dielectric loss of 3.8% were measured for the PMN–PT thin film at 100 kHz. The annealed films were found to be little fatigue even after 1010 number of switching cycles. The ferroelectric properties of these PMN–PT thin films, which are compared favourably with those of PMN–PT thin films via other deposition routes, are accounted for by their structural features.