Effect of Annealing Temperature on Electrical Properties of Ferroelectric Bi_3.25La_0.75Ti₃O₁₂ Capacitors

Lanthanum-modified bismuth titanate (Bi_3.25La_0.75Ti₃O₁₂, BLT) thin films are
fabricated on platinized Si wafers by the sol-gel method, and the effect of annealing temperatures ranging from 650°C to 800°C on the electrical properties of Pt/BLT/Pt capacitors are investigated. It is found that polarization and leakage current of BLT capacitors strongly depend on the annealing temperature although all the capacitors demonstrate very similar characteristics, except the value of polarization, in pulse-width dependence, retention, and fatigue. Remanent polarization increases with the increase of annealing temperature, and annealing temperature of 700°C can yield the
largest remanent polarization, and then polarization decreases with increasing annealing temperature. For the 700°C annealed Pt/BLT/Pt capacitor, the remanent polarization 2P_r and the coercive field 2E_c, at an electric field of 226kV/cm, are 23.8μC/cm² and 130kV/cm, respectively. Dielectric breakdown voltages of BLT films annealed at 750°C and 800°C are much lower than those annealed at 650°C and 700°C. At 100kV/cm, the leakage currents of BLT films prepared at 650°C and 700°C are only
1.5×10^-6A/cm² and 8.9×10-7A/cm², espectively. Moreover, all the Pt/BLT/Pt capacitors exhibit excellent retention properties after a cumulative time of 1× m 10⁴s and do not show any significant fatigue up to 1×10¹⁰ switching cycles
at frequency of 1MHz.