As I read in a paper, many people tend to add some O2 to Ar. What is the effect compared with pure Ar? PZT is not metal, so it can not be regarded as reactive sputtering. Does it help to increase the sputtering rate of PZT?
I'm not a specialist on PZT, but the chemical formula is Pb[Zr(x)Ti(1-x)]O(3), i.e. it does contain oxygen. One cannot expect the flux of sputtered material to have exactly the same composition as the target, therefore oxygen is likely added to counter any imbalances. For example, when sputtering ITO, we sometimes do add oxygen to the argon.
Also, note that "reactive" sputtering is more versatile than oxidizing metals. If you were to sputter pure silicon while adding some nitrogen, you would obtain silicon nitride.
It is not the only case of PZT but for some other oxide materials some oxygen is added to argon gas while sputtering to reduce the oxygen vacancies. The presence of oxygen vacancies increase leakage current and deteriorate ferroelectric behavior.
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