Effects of vacuum-plasma etching on the electrical properties of thin ferroelectric PZT films

Effects of vacuum plasma etching with subsequent thermal annealing on electrical properties of thin ferroelectric lead zirconate-titanate films are studied. It is shown that vacuum plasma etching leads to the decrease of electrical properties of the films due to defects formation. It is found that defects induced by ion-beam and reactive-ion etching demonstrate different behavior after the high temperature post-annealing. The annealing after reactive-ion etching leads to practically complete recovering of the film's properties, whereas the films annealed after ion-beam etching degrade even more. Polarization properties of the films after vacuum plasma etching are studied by piezo-force microscopy.