Structural and electrical properties of BiFeO3 thin films

BiFeO 3 (BFO) thin films were fabricated by depositing sol-gel solutions on Pt/Ti/SiO 2 /Si (100) structures. The crystalline BFO phase was observed after 5-min- and 15-min-annealing for films formed using stoichemistric and 5% Bi-excess sol-gel solutions, respectively. Only Bi 2 Fe 4 O 9 were observed as the secondary phase during deposition and the fraction of secondary phase depended upon the annealing temperature as well as the annealing atmosphere. The leakage current density in the range of 10 -7 A/cm 2 was obtained after optimizing process conditions for stoichemistric BFO chemical solution. The remanent polarization of around 40 mu C/cm 2 was observed at 600 kV/cm applied field at room temperature, although the hysteresis loop was degraded by leakage current.