ITO-based electrode: A promising candidate for the growth of piezoelectric thin films

Abstract
In many ways, interfaces and surfaces dominate the behavior of thin films and multilayered devices. The critical nature that the interfaces play on numerous physical properties has stimulated significant effort to both understand such behavior and develop novel and potentially useful nanoscale systems. In particular, the use of suitable buffer layers has been shown to allow the control of nucleation and growth processes and, thus, the fabrication of a very wide range of nanostructured materials. This paper briefly overviews the relevant experimental work performed at the LPMC and related to piezoelectric thin films. Particular emphasis is given to In₂O₃:Sn oxide as an interesting conductive electrode / buffer layer for the growth of various piezoelectric compounds including LiNbO₃ (LN), Pb(Zr_0,52Ti_0,48)O₃ (PZT), ZnO.