High tunabilty Ba0.6Sr0.4TiO3 thin films fabricated on Pt–Si substrates with La0.5Sr0.5CoO3 buffer layer

Ba0.6Sr0.4TiO3 (BST) thin films for the tunable microwave devices were grown using pulsed laser deposition (PLD) on Pt/Ti/SiO2/Si (Pt–Si) substrates with La0.5Sr0.5CoO3 (LSCO) buffer layers. For comparison, the films were also grown on Pi-Si substrates. X-ray diffraction results showed that the BST films on Pt–Si displayed a highly (110) preferred orientation, while the films with the LSCO buffer layers were (100)-oriented. Atomic force microscope (AFM) revealed that BST films with LSCO buffer layers had smoother surface and smaller grain size. Compared with (110) BST films, the (100) BST thin films had the higher tunability and the better figure of merit (FOM). The dielectric constant, the dielectric loss and the tunability of the BST thin films on LSCO/Pt–Si substrates measured at 10 kHz were 1010, 0.031 and 82.4%, respectively. Additionally, the current–voltage(I–V) measurement indicated that the leakage current density of (100) BST thin films on LSCO/Pt-Si substrates was reduced compared with that of (110) BST thin films directly on Pt electrodes, due to the possible reduction of interface oxygen vacancies at BST/LSCO interface and smaller grain size of the films. The enhancement in dielectric properties may be attributed to (100) preferred orientation in the films.