Enhancement of 0.65Pb(Mg1/3Nb2/3)O3–0.35PbTiO3 thick films: Effects of flash lamp annealing

The deposition of high-quality piezoceramic thick films is challenging on temperature-sensitive substrates. Powder aerosol deposition is a promising room-temperature technique for fabricating dense piezoceramic thick films; however, annealing is still required to improve their functional properties. As an alternative to conventional furnaces, not suited for metallic or polymeric substrates, flash lamp annealing enables selective annealing of the films without damaging the substrates. In this work, 3 μm-thick 0.65Pb(Mg1/3Nb2/3)O3–0.35PbTiO3 thick films are prepared by powder aerosol deposition on 0.8 mm-thick stainless steel substrates and are flash-lamp annealed afterwards. The annealed films exhibit an increased permittivity of 580 and remanent polarization of 31 μC cm-2, comparable to results obtained by conventional annealing at 500 °C. The enhanced ferroelectric properties are linked a release of the strain in the films. This work demonstrates the possibility to deposit and anneal piezoelectric thick films on temperature sensitive substrates.