Minh D. Nguyen

Ferroelectric properties of epitaxial Pb(Zr,Ti)O3 thin films on silicon by control of crystal orientation

Crystalline Pb(Zr,Ti)O3 (PZT) thin films between metallic-oxide SrRuO3 (SRO) electrodes were prepared using pulsed laser deposition on CeO2/yttria-stabilized zirconia buffered silicon (001) substrates. Different deposition conditions for the initial layers of the bottom SRO electrode result in an orientation switch. Either (110)- or (001)-oriented SRO thin films are obtained and the PZT films deposited on the bottom electrode continued both growth directions. The ferroelectric characteristics of the SRO/PZT/SRO capacitors are found to be strongly dependent on their crystalline orientation: PZT (001)-oriented thin films showed stable, high quality ferroelectric response, while the remnant polarization of the PZT (110)-oriented thin films only show high response after multiple switching cycles.

Misfit strain dependence of ferroelectric and piezoelectric properties of clamped (001) epitaxial Pb(Zr0.52,Ti0.48)O3 thin films

A study on the effects of the residual strain in Pb(Zr0.52Ti0.48)O3 (PZT) thin films on the ferroelectric and piezoelectric properties is presented. Epitaxial (001)-oriented PZT thin film capacitors are sandwiched between SrRuO3 electrodes. The thin film stacks are grown on different substrate-buffer-layer combinations by pulsed laser deposition. Compressive or tensile strain caused by the difference in thermal expansion of the PZT film and substrate influences the ferroelectric and piezoelectric properties. All the PZT stacks show ferroelectric and piezoelectric behavior that is consistent with the theoretical model for strained thin films in the ferroelectric r-phase. We conclude that clamped (001) oriented Pb(Zr0.52Ti0.48)O3 thin films strained by the substrate always show rotation of the polarization vector

Characterization of epitaxial Pb(Zr,Ti)O3 thin films deposited by pulsed laser deposition on silicon cantilevers

This paper reports on the piezoelectric-microelectromechanical system micro-fabrication process and the behavior of piezoelectric stacks actuated silicon cantilevers. All oxide layers in the piezoelectric stacks, such as buffer-layer/bottom-electrode/film/top-electrode: YSZ/SrRuO3/Pb(Zr,Ti)3/SrRuO3, were grown epitaxially on the Si template of silicon-on-insulator substrates by pulsed laser deposition. By using an analytical model and finite element simulation, the initial bending of the cantilevers was calculated. These theoretical analyses are in good agreement with the experimental results which were determined using a white light interferometer. The dependences of the cantilever displacement, resonance frequency and quality factor on the cantilever geometry have been investigated using a laser-Doppler vibrometer. The tip displacement ranged from 0.03 to 0.42 µm V−1, whereas the resonance frequency and quality factor values changed from 1010 to 18.6 kHz and 614 to 174, respectively, for the cantilevers with lengths in the range of 100–800 µm. Furthermore, the effect of the conductive oxide electrodes on the stability of the piezoelectric displacement of the cantilevers has been studied.

Processed Vietnamese ginseng: Preliminary results in chemistry and biological activity

Background This study was carried out to investigate the effect of the steaming process on chemical constituents, free radical scavenging activity, and antiproliferative effect of Vietnamese ginseng. Methods Samples of powdered Vietnamese ginseng were steamed at 120°C for various times and their extracts were subjected to chemical and biological studies. Results Upon steaming, contents of polar ginsenosides, such as Rb1, Rc, Rd, Re, and Rg1, were rapidly decreased, whereas less polar ginsenosides such as Rg3, Rg5, Rk1, Rk3, and Rh4 were increased as reported previously. However, ocotillol type saponins, which have no glycosyl moiety at the C-20 position, were relatively stable on steaming. The radical scavenging activity was increased continuously up to 20 h of steaming. Similarly, the antiproliferative activity against A549 lung cancer cells was also increased. Conclusion It seems that the antiproliferative activity is closely related to the contents of ginsenoside Rg3, Rg5, and Rk1.

The significance of the piezoelectric coefficient d31,eff determined from cantilever structures

The method used by SolMateS to determine the effective piezoelectric coefficient d31,eff of Pb(Zr,Ti)O3 (PZT) thin films from cantilever displacement measurements is described. An example from a 48 cantilever dataset using different cantilever widths, lengths and crystal alignments is presented. It is shown that for the layer stack of our cantilevers, the multimorph model is more accurate compared to the bimorph model for the d31,eff determination. Corrections to the input parameters of the model are further applied in order to reduce the geometrical error of the cantilever that is caused by its design and processing, as well as correction to the measured tip displacement caused by resonance amplification. It is shown that after these corrections, the obtained d31,eff values are still up to 10% uncertain as the plate behavior and the non-constant radius of curvature of the cantilevers lead to inconsistent results. We conclude that quantitative determination of d31,eff from the cantilevers is highly subjective to misinterpretation of the models used and the measurement data. The true value of d31,eff was determined as −118.9 pm V−1.

Initial growth, refractive index, and crystallinity of thermal and plasma-enhanced atomic layer deposition AlN films

The authors have studied and compared the initial growth and properties of AlN films deposited on Si(111) by thermal and plasma-enhanced atomic layer deposition (ALD) using trimethylaluminum and either ammonia or a N2-H2 mixture as precursors. In-situ spectroscopic ellipsometry was employed to monitor the growth and measure the refractive index of the films during the deposition. The authors found that an incubation stage only occurred for thermal ALD. The linear growth for plasma-enhanced ALD (PEALD) started instantly from the beginning due to the higher nuclei density provided by the presence of plasma. The authors observed the evolution of the refractive index of AlN during the growth, which showed a rapid increase up to a thickness of about 30 nm followed by a saturation. Below this thickness, higher refractive index values were obtained for AlN films grown by PEALD, whereas above that the refractive index was slightly higher for thermal ALD films. X-ray diffraction characterization showed a wurtzite crystalline structure with a (1010) preferential orientation obtained for all the layers with a slightly better crystallinity for films grown by PEALD.

Synthesis of KCa2Nb3O10 Crystals with Varying Grain Sizes and Their Nanosheet Monolayer Films As Seed Layers for PiezoMEMS Applications

The layered perovskite-type niobate KCa2Nb3O10 and its derivatives show advantages in several fields, such as templated film growth and (photo)catalysis. Conventional synthesis routes generally yield crystal size smaller than 2 μm. We report a flux synthesis method to obtain KCa2Nb3O10 crystals with significantly larger sizes. By using different flux materials (K2SO4 and K2MoO4), crystals with average sizes of 8 and 20 μm, respectively, were obtained. The KCa2Nb3O10 crystals from K2SO4 and K2MoO4 assisted synthesis were protonated and exfoliated into monolayer nanosheets, and the optimal exfoliation conditions were determined. Using pulsed laser deposition, highly (001)-oriented piezoelectric stacks (SrRuO3/PbZr0.52Ti0.48O3/SrRuO3, SRO/PZT/SRO) were deposited onto Langmuir-Blodgett films of Ca2Nb3O10(-) (CNO) nanosheets with varying lateral nanosheet sizes on Si substrates. The resulting PZT thin films showed high crystallinity irrespective of nanosheet size. The small sized nanosheets yielded a high longitudinal piezoelectric coefficient d33 of 100 pm/V, while the larger sized sheets had a d33 of 72 pm/V. An enhanced transverse piezoelectric coefficient d31 of -107 pm/V, an important input parameter for the actuation of active structures in microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) devices, was obtained for PZT films grown on CNO nanosheets with large lateral size, while the corresponding value on small sized sheets was -96 pm/V.

Epitaxial Pb(Mg1/3Nb2/3)O3-PbTiO3 (67/33) thin films with large tunable self-bias field controlled by a PbZr1−xTixO3 interfacial layer

Epitaxial Pb(Mg1/3Nb2/3)O3-PbTiO3 200 nm thick, (001) oriented, perovskite phase-pure films were grown on a range of PbZr1−xTixO3 buffer layers (x = 0.2–0.8) and sandwiched between SrRuO3 electrodes on (001) SrTiO3 substrates to form a ferroelectric capacitor structure. Devices without a buffer layer or with a buffer layer of highly tetragonal PbZr1−xTixO3 show very large self-bias fields up to 1.0 × 107 V/m. These self-bias fields correlate with strain gradient layers near the bottom electrode observed in these devices only. The large self-bias was explained quantitatively in terms of the flexoelectric effect.

Optimized electrode coverage of membrane actuators based on epitaxial PZT thin films

This research presents an optimization of piezoelectric membrane actuators by maximizing the actuator displacement. Membrane actuators based on epitaxial Pb(Zr,Ti)O3 thin films grown on all-oxide electrodes and buffer layers using silicon technology were fabricated. Electrode coverage was found to be an important factor in the actuation displacement of the piezoelectric membranes. The optimum electrode coverage for maximum displacement was theoretically determined to be 39%, which is in good agreement with the experimental results. Dependences of membrane displacement and optimum electrode coverage on membrane diameter and PZT-film/Si-device-layer thickness ratio have also been investigated.

Determination of the Young's modulus of pulsed laser deposited epitaxial PZT thin films

We determined the Young’s modulus of pulsed laser deposited epitaxially grown PbZr0.52Ti0.48O3 (PZT) thin films on microcantilevers by measuring the difference in cantilever resonance frequency before and after deposition. By carefully optimizing the accuracy of this technique, we were able to show that the Young’s modulus of PZT thin films deposited on silicon is dependent on the in-plane orientation, by using cantilevers oriented along the 1 1 0 and 1 0 0 silicon directions. Deposition of thin films on cantilevers affects their flexural rigidity and increases their mass, which results in a change in the resonance frequency. An analytical relation was developed to determine the effective Young’s modulus of the PZT thin films from the shift in the resonance frequency of the cantilevers, measured both before and after the deposition. In addition, the appropriate effective Young’s modulus valid for our cantilevers’ dimensions was used in the calculations that were determined by a combined analytical and finite-element (FE) simulations approach. We took extra care to eliminate the errors in the determination of the effective Young’s modulus of the PZT thin film, by accurately determining the dimensions of the cantilevers and by measuring many cantilevers of different lengths. Over-etching during the release of cantilevers from the handle wafer caused an undercut. Since this undercut cannot be avoided, the effective length was determined and used in the calculations. The Young’s modulus of PZT, deposited by pulsed laser deposition, was determined to be 103.0 GPa with a standard error of ± 1.4 GPa for the 1 1 0 crystal direction of silicon. For the 1 0 0 silicon direction, we measured 95.2 GPa with a standard error of ± 2.0 GPa.