Epitaxial BiFeO 3 thin films on Si

The growth of epitaxial BiFeO 3 (BFO) thin films on Si substrate using pulsed laser deposition with SrTiO 3 (STO) as a template layer and SrRuO 3 (SRO) as a bottom electrode was investigated. The structure of the film was investigated using x-ray diffraction and transmission electron microscopy. It was observed that the value of spontaneous polarization of the films was ∼45 μC/Cm 2. The results show that the 400-nm-thick films has a large piezoelectric coefficient of ∼120 pm/V, which is useful to applications in actuators and microelectromechanical (MEMS) devices.