Oxide thin films for tunable microwave devices

Oxide thin films have been studied for frequency and phase agile electronics. The electric-field tuning of microwave devices employs ferroelectrics, while the Magnetic-field tuning uses ferrites. The critical material parameters for ferroelectric thin films are the tunability of the dielectric constant and the dielectric loss. This paper describes the current understanding of the fundamental mechanisms of these properties and the research efforts to improve them in ferroelectric thin films.