Investigation and characterization of the annealing effects on the ferroelectric behavior of PLD BaTiO 3

This work investigates the ferroelectric behavior of barium titanate (BaTiO3) with and without annealing of the deposited film. 105.7 nm of BaTiO3 was deposited via pulsed laser deposition on a niobium-doped strontium titanate substrate. 50 nm of tungsten was sputtered and patterned into contact pads, and the film was subjected to electrical and material characterization. Annealing times greater than 30 min decreased the leakage current by 2–3 orders of magnitude. We demonstrate multiple, distinct, repeatable polarization states of BaTiO3 as a function of the film annealing time, and the forming and hysteresis sweep pulse lengths and amplitudes.