Correlations between Electrical Parameters and Performances of Piezoelectric Thin Films Fabricated by RF Sputtering Using Diverse Gas Conditions

Abstract

Recently, the development of piezoelectric energy harvesting technology as one of promising green-energy harvesting technologies has gained much attention due to its simple working principle and less limitation in harvesting electrical energy. In order to more efficiently harvest electrical energy using piezoelectric-based energy harvesting technology, many pioneering researches have been made, including the fabrication of superior thin film-based piezoelectric energy harvesting devices. Nonetheless, most of those researches have been focused to improve the output voltages of thin film-based piezoelectric energy harvesting devices, but few researches were reported on the correlations between their electrical parameters and piezoelectric characteristics through the characterization of various thin film-based piezoelectric energy harvesting devices fabricated by RF sputtering using diverse gas conditions. In this paper, piezoelectric characteristics of the piezoelectric thin films deposited by RF sputtering technique using various gas conditions are studied. In particular, correlations between electrical characteristics and piezoelectric characteristics of the piezoelectric thin films are investigated. This study will contribute to the development of high-quality piezoelectric thin films useful for piezoelectric harvesting applications and can provide a basic guideline to design more superior thin film-based piezoelectric energy harvesting devices in the future. Acknowledgment: This research was supported by Basic Science Research Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Education (Grant No. 2016R1D1A1B01007074).