XPS oxygen line broadening in lead zirconium titanate and related materials

Synthesis of the Pb(ZrxTi1−x)O3 (PZT) ceramics requires mixing materials such as PbO, TiO2 and ZrO2. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) of PZT thin films and other Pb-based materials shows structure and lineshape changes in the O 1s line which can be described in term of the shifts in binding energies of O 1s electrons in their constituents. The hybridization and overlap of the density of states of the elements in the molecule result in softening the bonds, shifting the oxygen peak toward a lower binding energy. Other lead-based materials such as PbZrO3 (PZO) and PbTiO3 (PTO), which also contain the same species, have been studied for comparison. The results show similar behavior of the oxygen peaks to that in PZT.