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Crystallization behavior of amorphous BaTiO3 thin films

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Abstract

The crystallization behavior of amorphous barium titanate (BaTiO3) thin films was studied as a function of annealing temperature from 500 to 1000 °C. Quantitative phase analysis by grazing incidence X-ray diffractometry revealed that the metastable hexagonal phase preferentially nucleates at lower temperatures with a transition to stable cubic nuclei at higher temperatures. The predominance of the metastable hexagonal-phase nucleation at lower temperatures suggests that it has the lowest nucleation barrier, in accordance with the Ostwald’s step rule. To help induce the nucleation of the cubic phase at lower temperatures, we explored the effects of electric fields on the crystallization behavior and found that direct-current fields moderately enhanced the cubic phase fraction in the 500–700 °C temperature range. Although the nucleation barrier of the cubic phase in the presence of an electric should be lowered more significantly with respect to that of the hexagonal phase because of the former’s higher relative permittivity, the effect arising from the change in volume free energy should only become significant at electric field strengths in the range of MV cm−1, an order of magnitude higher than the experimentally accessible fields in the present study. This suggests alternative, perhaps interface-mediated, mechanisms by which the electric field modifies the nucleation behavior of BaTiO3.

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Acknowledgements

This work was performed in part at the Analytical Instrumentation Facility (AIF) at North Carolina State University, which is supported by the State of North Carolina and the National Science Foundation (award number ECCS-1542015). The AIF is a member of the North Carolina Research Triangle Nanotechnology Network (RTNN), a site in the National Nanotechnology Coordinated Infrastructure (NNCI). This work was partially supported by the II–VI Foundation under the Block-Gift Program. GNK and J-PM acknowledge support from NSF Ceramics, award 1610844.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, 27695, USA

    Gyung Hyun Ryu, Neal P. Lewis, George N. Kotsonis, Jon-Paul Maria & Elizabeth C. Dickey

  2. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, 16802, USA

    George N. Kotsonis & Jon-Paul Maria

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  1. Gyung Hyun Ryu
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Correspondence to Elizabeth C. Dickey.

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Ryu, G.H., Lewis, N.P., Kotsonis, G.N. et al. Crystallization behavior of amorphous BaTiO3 thin films. J Mater Sci 55, 8793–8801 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10853-020-04637-z

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