The effect of stress on the dielectric and tunable properties of barium stannate titanate thin films

Ba(Sn0.15Ti0.85)O3 thin films were grown on the LaNiO3 buffered LaAlO3, SrTiO3, MgO, and Al2O3 single crystal substrates, respectively. These substrates provide a systematic change in the stress while maintaining the same film microstructure. The stress in the thin film induces an obvious change in the dielectric behavior. The reduction in the ferroelectric transition temperature with increasing biaxial tensile stress is attributed to the suppression of in-plane polarization due to the small lateral grain size in the films. The in-plane tensile stress in this study reduces the unit cell along electric field in the parallel plate capacitor structure and decreases the tunability.