Nanocrystalline ferroelectric/relaxor multilayers

After investigations on sputtered nanocrystalline ferroelectric Pb 0.76 Ca 0.24 TiO 3 (PTC) films and nanocrystalline relaxor films, namely Pb(Sc 0.5 Ta 0.5 )O 3 (PST), Pb(Sc 0.5 Nb 0.5 )O 3 (PSN) and Pb(Mg 1/3 Nb 2/3 )O 3 (PMN) we started to investigate effects in multilayers of nanocrystalline ferroelectric and relaxor films. The increasing size of the crystallites, the crystal structure and the phase purity were characterized by profile analysis of the XRD spectra which reveal that the perovskite peaks of the PTC films in the multilayers are very well developed and the large amount of pyrochlore phase found in the single layers has almost been completely reduced. Temperature and frequency dependent dielectric measurements show not only typical relaxor properties but the existence of two maxima as well. Hysteresis loops have been recorded to look for thickness dependence.