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Effects of solvents and Al doping on structure and physical properties of BiFeO3 thin films

  • Original Paper: Characterization methods of sol-gel and hybrid materials
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Abstract

In this study, BFO and BFAO thin films were prepared on fluorine-doped tin oxide (FTO) substrates via spin coating with two different acid solvents. One is nitric acid solution (solvent I), the other is a mixture of 2-methoxyethanol and glacial acetic acid (solvent II). The structure, morphology, elemental valence states, and ferroelectric properties of BiFeO3 (BFO) and BiFe0.96Al0.04O3 (BFAO) films were investigated. X-ray diffraction (XRD) results show that all the films are R3c structure and have no impurity phase. The SEM results show that the BFO thin film prepared by solvent II is more compact, uniform, and has low porosity. Raman spectra show that Al doping causes structural distortion. Al doping can solve the problem of porosity and increase the density of BFO thin film. Therefore, the density of BFAO-II sample is better. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) shows that the presence of Al reduces the oxygen vacancy content. This is beneficial to reduce the leakage current density and improve the ferroelectric properties. The leakage current density of BFAO-II sample is 10-3 A/cm2, and the double residual polarization value is 110.2 μC/cm2. Compared with BFO-II sample, it is significantly improved. In addition, Al doping can reduce the band gap of BFO films. This work will be a new idea for the further application of Al doped bismuth ferrite films.

P-E curves of BFO (I, II) and BFAO (I, II) films: (a) for BFO-I and BFAO-I and (b) for BFO-II and BFAO-II.

Highlights

  • High performance BFO, BFAO thin films were prepared by sol–gel method.

  • The BFO thin films have excellent properties with the mixed solution of 2-methoxyethanol and glacial acetic acid as solvent.

  • Al doping can effectively improve the ferroelectric properties and reduce the band gap width of BFO thin films.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 52073129 and 51762030).

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  1. Faculty of Materials Science and Engineering, Kunming University of Science and Technology, Kunming, 650093, PR China

    Xia-Li Liang, Jian-Qing Dai, Chang-Chang Zhang & Tian-Fu Cao

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  1. Xia-Li Liang
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Correspondence to Jian-Qing Dai.

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Liang, XL., Dai, JQ., Zhang, CC. et al. Effects of solvents and Al doping on structure and physical properties of BiFeO3 thin films. J Sol-Gel Sci Technol 98, 45–53 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10971-021-05489-y

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