Microstructure and properties of PZT53/47 thick films derived from sols with submicron-sized PZT particle

A hybrid sol-gel process technology has been developed for the fabrication of thick films of lead zirconate titanate (PZT) thick films. In this paper, submicron-sized PZT powder was dispersed into a 2-methoxyethanol (MOE) diluted PZT sol solution uniformly to obtain a suspension/slurry for spin-coating purpose. Thick films on platinized silicon substrate with thickness of 10 mum were obtained after annealing at 650 degreesC for 30 min. A higher sol solution concentration had larger single layer thickness, but a smaller one resulted in a more uniform surface. The resultant films have a composite microstructure. Dielectric and ferroelectric properties were investigated for all samples made from such process. Ferroelectric P-E hysteresis loop were obtained for most of them and the dielectric constant, remanent polarization, and coercive field for sample 3023 were 884, 20 muC/cm(2), and 95 kV/cm, which was comparable with bulk PZT ceramic. (C) 2004 Elsevier Ltd and Techna Group S.r.l. All rights reserved.