Crystallization and Electrical Characteristics of 0.95 (Na_0.5Bi_0.5)TiO₃-0.05 BaTiO₃ Thin Films Under Different Annealing Temperature and Atmosphere

0.95 (Na_0.5Bi_0.5)TiO₃-0.05 BaTiO₃ +1 wt% Bi₂O₃ (NBT-BT3) ceramic is used as target to deposit the NBT-BT3 thin films. The excess 1wt% Bi₂O₃ is used to compensate the vaporization of Bi₂O₃ during the sintering and annealing processes. NBT-BT3 thin films are successfully deposited using radio frequency (RF) magnetron sputter method and crystallized subsequently using a conventional furnace annealing (CFA) process. The annealed process is conducted in air and in oxygen atmosphere at temperatures ranging from 600–800 °C for 60 min. As compared with the as-deposited NBT-BT3 thin films, the CFA-treated process has improved the grain growth and crystallization. We will show that the annealing atmosphere is the more important parameter to influence the grain growth and crystallization of NBT-BT3 thin films than the annealing temperature. The influences of CFA-treated temperature and atmosphere on the electrical characteristics of NBT-BT3 thin films, including the polarization characteristics (Pr, Ps, and Ec values), the capacitance–voltage (C–V) curves, and the leakage current density–electric field (J–E) curves, are also investigated in this study.