Structure-Engineered Epitaxial PZT Thin Films on Silicon for High Piezoelectric Performance

  • Kweon, Sang Hyo (Kobe University)
  • Kanno, Isaku (Kobe University)

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Piezoelectric materials are widely recognized for their efficient conversion between mechanical energy and electrical energy, thereby facilitating their use in a variety of electromechanical devices. Recently, the development of piezoelectric thin films has paved the way for the fabrication of miniaturized electromechanical devices, commonly referred to as piezoelectric MEMS (piezo-MEMS). However, since the MEMS process itself has reached a mature stage due to inherent spatial limitations, an alternative approach emphasizing material design should be taken into account to further enhance the performance of piezo-MEMS devices. Pb(Zr,Ti)O3 (PZT) thin films have been extensively studied for their exceptional piezoelectric properties, which allows for diverse piezo-MEMS applications. Typically, these PZT thin films are deposited in a polycrystalline phase, which is facile to implement on Si substrates used in MEMS. Meanwhile, epitaxial PZT thin films possess simpler crystal structures so that the design and optimization of their piezoelectricity is easier than the polycrystalline films. Moreover, the simpler structure enables a deeper understanding of the fundamental origins of the piezoelectricity through various analysis tools, which leads to an enhancement of the piezoelectric properties. However, depositing epitaxial PZT thin films on Si substrate is quite challenging owing to lattice mismatch between Si and PZT. In this work, we successfully deposited epitaxial PZT thin films on Si substrates with good quality. We then characterized these thin films and fabricated them into piezoelectric devices, which were subsequently evaluated.