Leakage current of sol-gel derived Pb(Zr, Ti)O3 thin films having Pt electrodes

The electrical conduction behaviors of sol-gel derived Pb(Zr, Ti)O3 (PZT) thin films on Pt electrodes were analyzed based on a fully depleted film, thermionic field emission, and space charge limited conduction model in the low and high electric field regions, respectively. For films having thicknesses ranging from 150 to 250 nm, no thickness-dependent variation in the dielectric constant was observed due to the relatively large thicknesses. The rather small film-thickness-dependent leakage current characteristics in the low-field region elucidates that the positive space charge density in the film is about 1018 cm−3, which is a smaller value than that of the sputter deposited (Ba, Sr)TiO3 thin films by an order of magnitude. The calculated interfacial potential barrier height and effective mass of electrons were 0.93 eV and 0.09m0, respectively. The slope larger than 2 from the log J vs log V plot in the high-field region implies that the energy level of electron traps are continuously distributed in the...