Polycrystalline Bi-3.15 SM0.85 Ti3O12 (BST) thin films having perovskite structure were fabricated on p-type Si(1 0 0) substrates by a sol-gel spin coating process. Apparent clockwise hysteresis of capacitance-voltage (C-V) curves for BST thin film on p-type Si(1 0 0) as the ferroelectric hysteresis was observed. The fixed charge density (N-fc) of 4.8 x 10(11) cm(-2) and surface state density (N-ss) of 2.5 x 10(12) cm(-2) eV(-1) were calculated by the Terman method. Moreover, the leakage current across the ferroelectrics, which is expected to affect the memory window, was measured by a thermally stimulated current (TSC) measurement. By analyzing J(L) - E-1/2 and J(L) - 1/T characteristics measured by TSC, the conduction mechanism of the BST/Si(1 0 0) capacitor were found to be dominated by the ferroelectric Schottky emission with a barrier height of 0.58 +/- 0.04 eV. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.