Ferroelectric dielectric and optical properties of layered PbZr _x Ti _1-x O₃ films derived from precursor solutions containing polyvinylpyrrolidone polymer additive

PbZr _x Ti _1-x O₃ (PZT) films were fabricated on FTO substrates by using precursor solutions containing polyvinylpyrrolidone additive and spinning-coating/annealing process. The correlation of the formation, ferroelectric, dielectric and optical reflection features of the layered PZT films with Zr/Ti atomic ration had been studied. It was found that each PZT film was fully crystallized and displayed a polycrystalline phase. The PZT films with Zr content ∼ 0.4–0.6 showed clearly distinguishable layered structures, and exhibited excellent ferroelectric and dielectric properties, together with good optical performance as dielectric mirrors. These PZT films possessed high reflectivity bands, the band widths were all over 50 nm and the peak reflectivities were more than 70%. They also had dielectric constants >550 Fm⁻¹ at 10 KHz, remnant polarizations >24 μC/cm² at 100 V polarizing voltage, rendering their potential application in photonic band gap engineering and integrated optoelectronics.