Tin titanate – the hunt for a new ferroelectric perovskite

We review all the published literature and show that there is no experimental evidence for homogeneous tin titanate SnTiO₃ in bulk or thin-film form. Instead a combination of unrelated artefacts are easily misinterpreted. The X-ray Bragg data are contaminated by double scattering from the Si substrate, giving a strong line at the 2-theta angle exactly where perovskite SnTiO₃ should appear. The strong dielectric divergence near 560K is irreversible and arises from oxygen site detrapping, accompanied by Warburg/Randles interfacial anomalies. The small (4μC/cm^-2) apparent ferroelectric hysteresis remains in samples shown to be pure (Sn,Ti)O₂ rutile/cassiterite, in which ferroelectricity is forbidden. Only very recent work reveals real bulk SnTiO₃, but it possesses an ilmenite-like structure with an elaborate array of stacking faults, not suitable for ferroelectric devices. Unpublished TEM data reveal an inhomogeneous SnO layered structured thin films, related to shell-core structures. The harsh conclusion is that there
is a combination of unrelated artefacts masquerading as ferroelectricity in powders and ALD films; and only a trace of a second phase in PLD film data suggests any perovskite content at all. The fact that X-ray, dielectric, and hysteresis data all lead to the wrong conclusion is instructive and reminds us of earlier work on copper calcium titanate (a well-known boundary-layer
capacitor).