Effects of Rapid Thermal Annealing on Nucleation and Growth Behavior of Lead Zirconate Titanate Films

This paper investigated the effects of rapid thermal annealing (RTA) on nucleation and growth behavior of sol-gel derived lead zirconate titanate (PZT) films. The effects of RTA on films' surface morphology, residual stress and orientation were also studied. It was found that residual stress of the film can be effectively reduced by extending the RTA time. High heating-rate was preferred for uniform PZT film nucleation and grain-growth, which resulted in dense microstructures and smooth film surface. Low heating-rate lead to strong PZT (100) orientation and low residual stress, but at the risk of film-crack caused by arbitrarily distributed large crystallites of about 300 nm in diameter among those with diameter of ~30 nm.