Pulsed Laser Deposition of a PBN:65 Morphotropic Phase Boundary Thin Film with Large Electrostriction

TL;DR

This paper reports the successful pulsed laser deposition of PBN:65 thin films with a large electrostrictive response, using a novel optical method to measure electric field-induced strain.

Contribution

It introduces a new optical measurement technique for electrostriction in thin films and demonstrates large electrostrictive constants in PBN:65 epitaxial films.

Findings

Electrostrictive constant of 0.000875 um2/V2 measured

Novel optical method for strain measurement developed

Epitaxial PBN:65 films with large electrostriction achieved

Abstract

We deposited epitaxial thin films of Morphotropic Phase Boundary (MPB) Pb0.65Ba0.35Nb2O6 (PBN:65) on MgO substrates using pulsed laser deposition. Afterwards, a novel transmission optical experiment was developed to measure the electric field-induced bending angle of the thin film sample using a divergent incident light. From which the electric field-induced strain was obtained, and it was used to calculate the electrostrictive constant of the PBN thin film. The result is 0.000875 um2/V2, and it is consistent with what we measured in the reflection experiment.