A wet cleaning solution was designed to specifically eliminate nonferroelectric phases, such as pyrochlore, PbO, and the etching damaged layer. Scanning electron microscopy pictures clearly showed that treatment with the cleaning solution completely removed these nonferroelectric phases. After removing the nonferroelectric phases, ferroelectric properties such as remnant polarization, coercive voltage, and leakage current, were remarkably improved. In addition, the wet cleaned ferroelectric capacitors yielded superior endurance against hydrogen-induced damage compared to those of the noncleaned capacitors. (C) 1999 American Institute of Physics. [S0021-8979(99)02622-5].