Micron-thick ternary relaxor 0.36Pb(In1/2Nb1/2)O3–0.36Pb(Mg1/3Nb2/3)O3–0.28PbTiO3 thin films with superior pyroelectric response on Si substrate

One of the critical challenges in developing high-performance micromachined pyroelectric infrared detector array and piezoelectric micro/nanosensors lies in obtaining excellent sensing thin films with micron thickness. In this study, high-quality ternary 0.36Pb(In1/2Nb1/2)O3–0.36Pb(Mg1/3Nb2/3)O3–0.28PbTiO3 (PIMNT36/36/28) thin films with high-Curie point were prepared on Pt/Ti/SiO2/Si substrates and dense morphology and remarkable dielectric, ferroelectric, piezoelectric, and pyroelectric properties were obtained. Under optimized processing temperature of 650 °C, the remnant polarization of the films reached 19.15 μC/cm2 and large pyroelectric coefficient up to 6.85 × 10–4 C/m2 K was obtained with high figure of merit (Detectivity Fd\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${F}_{\mathrm{d}}$$\end{document} reached 1.96 ×\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\times$$\end{document} 10–5 Pa−1/2@100Hz\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$@100\mathrm{ Hz}$$\end{document} for 1 μm-thick PIMNT36/36/28 film). Piezoresponse force microscopy revealed an obvious domain reversal under in situ electric field with “butterfly” shape local piezoelectric response. The superior global performance makes the present PIMNT36/36/28 thin film quite favorable for integrated pyroelectric devices’ applications.