Variations of optical properties with phase co-existence in PZT thin films

Polycrystalline Pb(Zr _x Ti_{1 − x} )O ₃ thin films with various thicknesses were deposited at room temperature on MgO (100) substrates by pulsed laser deposition. X-ray diffraction and atomic force microscopy were used to characterize the crystal structure and morphology and spectrophotometry measurements at wavelengths from 180 nm to 3000 nm, and prism-coupler method were used in the optical characterization of the thin films. A thickness-temperature phase-diagram is presented. Phase co-existence was found to increase curvature and roughness of the films, causing broadening of guiding TE ₀ modes, whereas in single phase oriented films FWHM Δ β mode values were smaller.