A study of the degradation of ferroelectric properties in Lead Zirconate Titanate (PZT) thin film capacitors is presented in this work. Metal- Ferroelectric - Metal capacitors were prepared by sputtering and metal organic decomposition (MOD) techniques. Samples with several different film thicknesses were considered in this study. Depolarization, leading to imprint has been studied at various temperatures. Changes in the dielectric properties of the capacitors as a function of the number of fatigue cycles is presented.

Impedance and modulus spectroscopic techniques have been applied to study the effect of degradation on the ferroelectric thin film. It has been shown that with accurate low frequency impedance measurement equipment, new insight can be gained on the mechanisms of degradation in ferroelectric capacitors.