Effect of seed layer on the ferroelectric properties and leakage current characteristics of sol–gel derived vanadium doped PbZr0.53Ti0.47O3 films

In this paper, we report the ferroelectric properties and leakage current characteristics of vanadium-doped PbZr_0.53Ti_0.47O₃ (PZTV) films grown on various seed layers prepared by a sol–gel process. The PZTV multilayered film of ~250-nm-thick showed excellent ferroelectric properties, with a large remnant polarization (P _r) of ~30 μC/cm² (E _c ~ 90 kV/cm), a high saturation polarization (P _s) of ~85 μC/cm² for an applied field of 1,000 kV/cm, fatigue-free characteristics of up to ≥ 10¹⁰ switching cycles, and a low leakage current density of 7 × 10⁻⁸ A/cm² at 100 kV/cm. X-ray diffraction (XRD), atomic force microscopy (AFM), and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) investigations indicated that PZTV films grown on PbZr_0.53Ti_0.47O₃/PbLa_0.05TiO₃ (PZT/PLT) seed layers exhibited a dense, well-crystallized microstructure with random orientations and a rather smooth surface morphology.