  Renewed interest has been witnessed in utilizing the piezoelectric response
of $PbZr_{0.52}Ti_{0.48}O_{3}$ (PZT) films on glass substrates for applications
such as data storage and adaptive optics. Accordingly, new methodologies are
being explored to grow well-oriented PZT thin films to harvest a large
piezoelectric response. However, thin film piezoelectric response is
significantly reduced compared to intrinsic response due to substrate induced
clamping, even when films are well-oriented. Here, a novel method is presented
to grow preferentially (100)-oriented PZT films on glass substrates by
utilizing crystalline nanosheets as seed layers. Furthermore, increasing the
repetition frequency up to 20 Hz during pulsed laser deposition helps to tune
the film microstructure to hierarchically ordered columns that leads to reduced
clamping and enhanced piezoelectric response evidenced by transmission electron
microscopy and analytical calculations. A large piezoelectric response of 280
pm/V is observed in optimally tuned structure which almost triples the highest
reported piezoelectric response on glass. To confirm that the clamping
compromises the piezoelectric response, denser films are deposited using a
lower repetition frequency and a $BiFeO_{3}$ buffer layer resulting in
significantly reduced piezoelectric responses. This paper demonstrates a novel
method for PZT integration on glass substrates without compromising the large
piezoelectric response.

Materials Science