Ferroelectric thin films prepared by sol-gel processing

Abstract Ferroelectric thin films are playing a growing role as key elements in variety of devices. For various techniques of ferroelectric thin film preparation, the sol-gel processing is one of the most promising. In comparison with different deposition techniques, we survey the intrinsic advantages and the recent improvements of the sol-gel processing. In this review paper, several interesting topics, including epitaxial growth and grain-orientation, symmetric and asymmetric P-E hysteresis loops, heterojunction effect of the interface between film and substrate, to attest pyroelectricity of the films, electrooptic coefficients in poled and unpoled films, possibility of amorphous ferroelectrics, etc., are introduced.