"Bi0.5Na0.5…0.94Ba0.06TiO3 thin films

Due to the increasing environmental and biological concerns on high toxicity of lead present in the widely used PbZr, TiO3 PZT family, considerable attention has been drawn to develop lead-free ferroelectric materials in the past two decades. 1 Among various potential lead-free piezoelectric ceramics, A-site complex perovskite Bi0.5Na0.5TiO3 BNT is considered to be one of the strong candidates because of its marked ferroelectricity/piezoelectricity. 2,3 The pioneer work by Takenaka et al. 4 demonstrated that rhombohedral F-tetragonal F morphotropic phase boundary MPB in Bi0.5Na0.5TiO3 – BaTiO3 BNBT binary system is remarkably effective in promoting piezoelectric properties. Subsequent studies revealed the piezoelectric performance of BNBT ceramics with MPB composition could be further enhanced by appropriate dopants. 5–7 In spite of the numerous studies on BNT-based single crystals and ceramics, literature tackling with the growth and characterization of BNT-based, especially BNBT-based thin films, still remains at an infancy stage. 8–12 Consequently,