Metal-Organic Chemical Vapor Deposition of BiFeO3 Based Multiferroics

Abstract

BiFeO3 films undoped and doped with Ba and/or Ti have been fabricated through Metal-Organic Chemical Vapor Deposition (MOCVD) on SrTiO3 (100), SrTiO3:Nb (100) and YSZ (100) substrates. Films have been deposited using a multi-metal source, consisting of the Bi (phenyl)3, Fe (tmhd)3, Ba (hfa)2•tetraglyme and Ti (tmhd)2(O-iPr)2 (phenyl= -C6H5, H-tmhd=2,2,6,6-tetramethyl-3,5-heptandione; O-iPr= iso-propoxide; H-hfa=1,1,1,5,5,5-hexafluoro-2,4-pentanedione; tetraglyme = CH3O(CH2CH2O)4CH3) precursor mixture. The structural and morphological characterization of films has been carried out using X-ray diffraction (XRD) and field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM). Chemical compositional studies have been performed by energy dispersive X-ray (EDX) analysis. Structural and morphological characterizations point to the formation of crystalline phases and homogeneous surfaces for both undoped and doped BiFeO3 films. Piezoresponse force microscopy (PFM) and piezoresponce force spectroscopy (PFS) have been applied to study the piezoelectric and ferroelectric properties of the films.