Compositional dependence of electrical properties in PLZST thin films

The purpose of this work was to conduct a systematic study of lanthanum doped lead zirconate stannate titanate (PLSZT) thin films with compositions in the antiferroelectric tetragonal (AFE(T)) and the antiferroelectric orthorhombic (AFE(o)) region. The effects of varying factors such as Sn content, Zr content, etc, were studied. While the compositions in the AFET region demonstrate clear double hysteresis loops, there is always some remanent polarization when the electric field is removed. The remanent polarization decreases when compositions are chosen farther away from the ferroelectric-antiferroelectric phase boundary. On the other hand in the AFE(o) region all the compositions show zero remanent polarization, especially those with higher Zr content which have previously seldom been studied. The results also show that these high Zr AFEo compositions have high energy storage densities making them suitable for energy storage applications such as decoupling capacitors in high speed multichip modules.