Electrically induced retardance of PLZT7/30/70 film with PLT layer

In this study, ferroelectric lanthanum-modified lead zirconate titanate (Pb0.93La0.07(Zr0.3Ti0.2)(0.93)O-3. PLZT7/30/70) thin films with and without a seeding layer of (Pb0.93La0.07)TiO3 (PLT7/0/100) were successfully deposited on ITO coated glass substrate via spin coating in conjunction with a sol-gel process, and a top conductive thin film of SnO2 was also prepared in the same way. The thicknesses of PLZT and PLT layer are obtained as 500 nm and 24 nm by SEM, respectively. The appropriate annealing temperature for PLZT film is obtained from X-ray test. The principal axis of PLZT film was determined by an easy optical configuration via a powermeter and then the electrically induced retardance of PLZT film was measured by a previously developed linear heterodyne interferometer. It is found that the retardance is enhanced 53.4% by application of a seeding layer of PLT into the PLZT film. From the spectra results between 400 nm and 700 nm, the average transmittance of PLZT film with a PLT seeding layer was 73.20%, which was a little smaller than that of PLZT film (around 81.02%). The root-mean-square (rms) roughness of PLZT thin film with a PLT layer (R-rms = 2.34 nm) was little larger than that of PLZT film (R-rms = 0.80 nm). Experimental results imply that the PLT seeding layer plays a key role in the increase of retardance, low variation in roughness, mainly due to the choice of annealing temperature and its lattice parameters are close to those of PLZT film. (C) 2012 Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved.