| As the increasing requirement of alternative energy with less pollution influence and higher energy efficient, new energy source and related storage methods are hot topic nowadays. Capacitors that supply high instant power are one of the keys in this application for both economic and functional design aspects. To lower the cost and increases the volumetric efficiency and reliability, relaxor thin films are considered as one of the candidates of the next generation capacitors. The research mainly focuses on dielectric and ferroelectric properties of lead lanthanum zirconate titanate or Pb1-xLax(ZryTi1-y)O3 (PLZT, x/y/1-y) relaxor thin films deposited on silicon (Si) and nickel (Ni) substrates in a range of thickness with different bottom electrodes, e.g. Platinum (Pt) and LaNiO3 (LNO). The final fabricated PLZT film capacitors will show strong potential for the energy storage application. The method adopted is the acetic acid assisted sol-gel deposition for the PLZT thin films. The wet chemical process is cost-effective and easily to scale up for plant/industrial products. We investigated the different bottom electrode/substrate influence in structure, microstructure, phases/defects, and heat-treatment conditions to achieve the optimized PLZT thin films. Issues of basic physical size effects in the PLZT thin films were also investigated, including thickness effects in the dielectric and ferroelectric properties of the films in a wide range of temperatures, the phase transition of the thin-film relaxors, lanthanum content effect, electrode-dielectric junction, misfit strain effect, etc. Based on the results and analysis, optimum PLZT film capacitors can be determined of proper substrate/electrode/dielectric that achieves the desired dielectric properties required for different applications, especially a more cost-effective method to develop volumetrically efficient capacitors with high charge density, energy density, dielectric breakdown strength, energy storage efficiency, and low dielectric loss, leakage current density. |
