Electrical properties of sputtered (Ba, Sr)TiO3 thin films prepared by two-step deposition method

The influence of two-step deposition on the electrical properties of sputtered (Ba,Sr)TiO₃ thin films was investigated. BST thin films with thickness 40 nm were deposited by a simple two-step radio frequency-magnetron sputtering technique, where the BST thin film consisted of a seed layer and a main layer. The dielectric constant was strongly dependent on the thickness of seed layer, but there was no dependence on deposition temperature of the seed layer. For a 2 nm seed layer, the dielectric constants were higher by about 29% than those of single-step BST thin films due to higher crystallinity and the leakage current was nearly the same as that of a single-step sample in bias voltage from −2 to 2.5 V. However, an improvement of the dielectric constant was not observed for samples having above 4 nm thick seed layers. A 40 nm thick BST film with 2 nm thick seed layer deposited by a two-step method exhibited a SiO₂ equivalent thickness of 0.385 nm and a leakage current density of 2.74 × 10⁻⁸A/cm²at+1.5V after post-annealing under an atmosphere of flowing N₂ for 30 min at 750°C.