Fabrication of BiFeO₃ Thick Films by a Simple Liquid-Phase Epitaxial Growth Technique

Epitaxial BiFeO₃ (BFO) thick films were fabricated on SrTiO₃ (STO) substrates by a simple liquid-phase epitaxy (LPE) growth technique. From the X-ray diffraction (XRD) patterns of specimens, the BFO thick film was found to have a single perovskite phase and be (100)-oriented. The full width at half maximum of the (100) peak was about 0.20°. The XRD pole-figure measurements using the (220) plane showed cube-on-cube epitaxial growth on the STO substrate. Scanning electron microscope observation showed that the thick films grown on the substrate display a multigrain structure with a maximum in-plane size of approximately 100 µm, and the film thickness was about 30–40 µm. These results indicate that the proposed simple LPE technique is highly suitable for the fabrication of BFO thick films.