Study of Electrical Properties of Pb(Zr,Ti)O₃ Ferroelectric Thin Film by Scanning Probe Microscopy

Pulsed laser deposition (PLD)technology was used to prepare SrRuO3 bottom electrode and epitaxial PbZr0.20Ti0.80O3 (PZT)films on the substrate of SrTiO3.Then,the nano-scale electrical properties of the thin film were studied by the multimode (PFM and C-AFM)scanning probe microscopy.The nano-scale piezoelectric displacement-electric field butterfly loop and the phase-electric field hysteresis loop obtained by using a conductive probe as the top electrode demonstrate that the films possessed good ferroelectric behavior.It is demonstrated that the nano-scale I-V curve of the sample polarized by +10 V voltage showed peak performance near the coercive electric field,and this result agreed well with the macroscopic I-V characteristics.The results made by the conductive atomic force microscopy and piezoresponse force microscopy suggested that the conductive atomic force microscopy could be used to detect and image the switching current of the PZT thin film.