Sol-Gel Synthesis of High-Quality SrRuO3 Thin-Film Electrodes Suppressing the Formation of Detrimental RuO2 and the Dielectric Properties of Integrated Lead Lanthanum Zirconate Titanate Films

A facile solution chemistry is demonstrated to fabricate high-quality polycrystalline strontium ruthenium oxide (SrRuO3) thin film electrodes on silicon substrates suppressing the formation of undesired ruthenium oxide (RuO2) for the deposition of dielectric and ferroelectric materials like lead lanthanum zirconatc titanate (PLZT). The robust, highly crystalline SrRuO3 film fabrication process does not favor the formation of RuO2 because of molecular level modification of the precursors possessing analogous melting points, yielding homogeneous films. This chemistry is further understood and complemented by kinetic and thermodynamic analysis of the DTA data under non-isothermal conditions, with which the activation energies to form RuO2 and SrRuO3 were calculated to be 156 +/- 17 and 96 +/- 10 kJ/mol, respectively. The room-temperature resistivity of the SrRuO3 film was measured to be similar to 850 +/- 50 42 mu Omega cm on silicon (100) substrates. The dielectric properties of sol gel-derived PLZT thin film capacitors on polycrystalline SrRuO3 electrodes were also measured to illustrate the high quality of the formed SrRuO3 bottom electrode. These results have broad implications for the expanded use of these conductive oxide electrodes in many applications that require low thermal budgets. The PLZT (8/52/48) films exhibited well-defined hysteresis loops with remanent polarization of similar to 10.5 mu C/cm(2), dielectric constant of > 1450, dielectric loss of < 0.06, and leakage current density of similar to 3.8 x 10(-8) A/cm(2). These dielectric properties are similar to those of F'LZT on platinized silicon, indicating the high quality of the bottom conductive oxide layer. In addition, the PLZT capacitors were essentially fatigue free for > 1 x 10(9) cycles when deposited over an oxide electrode.