Electrophoretic deposition and sintering of thin/thick PZT films

Electrophoretic deposition (EPD) is a simple, rapid, and low cost method for forming dense lead zirconate titanate (PZT) films down to 5 µm from particulate precursors. The three main steps of this process are: (1) formation of a charged suspension of the starting PZT powder; (2) deposition of the powder particles on an electrode under the influence of a dc electric field; and (3) fluxing and constrained sintering of the resulting particulate deposit at 900°C to form a dense continuous film. A 10 mm film formed using this process exhibited a polarization hysteresis equivalent to that of a bulk sample formed from the same starting powder, with a remnant polarization of 33 µC cm^-2