Di Zhang1,Katherine Harmon2,Michael Zachman3,Ping Lu4,Doyun Kim5,Qing Tu5,Aiping Chen1
Los Alamos National Laboratory1,Argonne National Laboratory2,Oak Ridge National Laboratory3,Sandia National Laboratories4,Texas A&M University5
Di Zhang1,Katherine Harmon2,Michael Zachman3,Ping Lu4,Doyun Kim5,Qing Tu5,Aiping Chen1
Los Alamos National Laboratory1,Argonne National Laboratory2,Oak Ridge National Laboratory3,Sandia National Laboratories4,Texas A&M University5
Developing novel lead-free nontoxic ferroelectric materials is crucial for the next-generation microelectronic technologies in regard to clean energy and environmental sustainability. However, materials discovery and properties optimization have usually been a frustratingly slow process due to the limited throughput in traditional synthesis methods. In this work, using a high-throughput combinatorial synthesis approach, we fabricated lead-free ferroelectric superlattices and solid solutions of (Ba<sub>0.7</sub>Ca<sub>0.3</sub>)TiO<sub>3</sub> (BCT) and Ba(Zr<sub>0.2</sub>Ti<sub>0.8</sub>)O<sub>3</sub> (BZT) phases with compositional gradients. The high-resolution X-ray diffraction and scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM) revealed the good film quality and well-controlled compositional gradient throughout the samples. Ferroelectric and dielectric properties identified the “optimal property point” achieved at the morphotropic phase boundary (MPB) with the composition of BZT-52BCT. The displacement vector maps revealed the tunable ferroelectric domain sizes by varying the single layer thickness of the {BCT/BZT}<i><sub>n</sub></i> superlattices. This high-throughput synthesis approach can be applied to many other materials systems to expedite novel materials discovery and property investigations.