Growth of highly orientated 0.65Pb(Mg1/3Nb2/3)O3–0.35PbTiO3 films by pulsed laser deposition

0.65Pb(Mg1/3Nb2/3)O3–0.35PbTiO3 thin films (PMN-PT) on LaNiO3 (LNO) metallic oxide electrode were successfully deposited using pulsed laser deposition technique. LaAlO3 (LAO) and SiO2/Si were employed as substrates. By controlling the operating parameters, high quality with preferred orientation of growth of PMN films on LNO were successfully fabricated. XRD Bragg scan (θ–2θ) of optimized PMN-PT/LNO/SiO2/Si and PMN-PT/LNO/LAO films showed (100) and (200) peaks of the pseudocubic PMN-PT and LNO only indicating the nature of highly orientated out-of-plane texture. In-plan orientations of the films of PMN-PT/LNO/LAO were studied by ϕ scan, which demonstrated cube-on-cube orientation, namely, perovskite [100]‖LNO pseudo-cubic [100]‖LAO [100]. The crystalline quality of the (100) orientated films were examined by rocking curves of (200) reflections. The full-width at half-maximum (FWHM) value of PMN-PT on LAO substrate is 2.4°. Mechanical properties of the PMN-PT film were studied using nano-indentation technique and piezoelectric properties were characterized by a ferroelectric tester.