Nondispersive dielectric component of ferroelectric thin films in the frequency range of 10-1-106 Hz -: art. no. 012905

We show that there exists a nondispersive (or elastic) capacitance component C-non which is independent of frequency f, ac amplitude V-OSC, and dc bias voltage V-dc, in the frequency range of 0.063 Hz-1 MHz. It can be separated from the total capacitance C-t of ferroelectric thin films by using either the C(V-dc,f)-C[V-dc,f((r))](V-OSC=const) or C(f,V-OSC)-C[f,V-OSC((r))](V-dc=const) plot, where f((r)) and V-OSC((r)) are the referenced frequency and ac amplitude, respectively. Our results suggest that the dispersive and nondispersive capacitance components may originate from different dielectric relaxation mechanisms. The extracted nondispersive C-non can be a useful physical parameter in evaluating maximum dielectric tunability for the phase-shift application of ferroelectric thin films in microwave devices and characterizing phase-transition temperature in a multilayered 0.2Pb(Zn1/3Nb2/3)O-3-0.8BaTiO(3)/Pb(Mg1/3Nb2/3)O-3 relaxor. (c) 2005 American Institute of Physics.