The metal-ferroelectric-insulator-semiconductor (MFIS) capacitors were fabricated using a metal organic decomposition (MOD) method. The CeO2 thin films were deposited as a buffer layer on Si substrate and Bi3.25La0.75Ti3O12 (BLT) thin films were used as a ferroelectric layer. The electrical and structural properties of the MFIS structure were investigated by varying the CeO2 layer thickness. The width of the memory window in the capacitance-voltage (C-V) curves for the MFIS structure decreased with increasing thickness of the CeO2 layer. Auger electron spectroscopy (AES) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) show no interdiffusion by using the CeO2 film as buffer layer between the BLT film and Si substrate. The experimental results show that the BLT-based MFIS structure is suitable for non-volatile memory field-effect-transistors (FETs) with large memory window. (C) 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.