BiFeO
3 (BFO) has attracted much attention because of its room-temperature multiferroic properties with a ferroelectric Curie temperature of
TC~830 ˚C and an antiferromagnetic Néel temperature of
TN~370 ˚C. Concerning the electrical properties, although its spontaneous polarization is as large as ~100
µC/cm
2, the piezoelectric constant (
d33~60 pm/V) is far smaller than those of lead containing piezoceramics, such as Pb(Zr,Ti)O
3 (PZT). An improved piezoelectric response is expected in the solid solution of rhombohedral BFO and tetragonal BiCoO
3, (1−
x)BiFeO
3 –
xBiCoO
3 (BFCO), owing to the presence of morphotropic phase boundary (MPB)
1) similar to PZT. In this study,epitaxial thin films of BFCO with
x = 0 − 0.1 were prepared on SrRuO
3(SRO)(001)/SrTiO
3(STO)(001) substrates by pulsed laser deposition, and their crystal structure and electrical properties were investigated. We successfully obtained single phase of epitaxial BFCO thin films with well-saturated polarization-electric field hysteresis loops at room temperature. Sharp BFCO/SRO and SRO/STO interfaces without intermixing and a good quality of BFCO were found by transmission electron microscopy. The effective
d33 estimated from the slope of the displacement-electric curve of the BFO film was ~60 pm/V, which is comparable to that reported by other investigators. The
d33 value of the BFCO thin film increased with increasing Co content and reached ~100 pm/V at
x = 0.1.
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