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Innovative device designs were used to fabricate low leakage ferroelectric BaTiO₃ (BTO) thin film capacitors. BTO thin films with thicknesses ranging from 220 nm to 265 nm were deposited using reactive r.f. magnetron sputtering. A highly stable and conductive metallic oxide, RuO₂, was used as the bottom electrode of the capacitors on SiO ₂Si substrates. Layers of BTO deposited at low temperature were amorphous and those deposited at high temperature above 600 °C were polycrystalline. Microcrystallization of amorphous BTO took place at a thermal treatment temperature of above 600 °C. Capacitors with a bilayer configuration of polycrystalline layers on microcrystalline layers showed a capacitance per unit area of around 2.4 × 10⁵pF cm⁻² and a leakage current density of (8.5 ± 0.5) × 10 ⁻⁸A cm ⁻² at a field intensity of 2 × 10 ⁵V cm ⁻¹. A capacitance per unit area of around 1.4 × 10 ⁵ pF cm ⁻² and a …