Lattice Vibrational Properties of SrBi2Ta2O9

SrBi2Ta2O9 is one of the layered perovskite ferroelectrics with excellent fatigue resistance and thus has gained great interest of semiconductor industries recently in non-volatile ferroelectric random access memory (FERAM) applications. The understanding of the lattice vibrational properties of this material can provide crucial information on its structure and dielectric behavior. In this work, we carried out Raman spectroscopy study of thin film, powder and single crystal SrBi2Ta2O9. At temperatures above the Curie temperature, all 12 Raman modes expected from the tetragonal (I4/mmm) structure have been observed and assigned to the 4 A1g, 6 Eg and 2 B1g modes based the polarized Raman spectra from the single crystal samples. At lower temperature, the Raman spectra have revealed all 22 A1 modes, but only 3 out of the 20 A2 modes and 5 out of the 42 B1/B2 modes were observed in the ferroelectric phase (A21am). The soft mode was found to be of A1 symmetry and appearing only when light polarization lay in the ab-plane.