Highly (100)- and (111)-oriented ferroelectric lead zirconate titanate PbZr0.53Ti0.47O3 (PZT) thin films have been grown in situ on TiOx/Pt/TiO2/SiO2/Si substrates by RF magnetron sputtering. Using electrostatic force microscopy (EFM), we show that the threshold voltage required to switch the ferroelectric domains is strongly dependent on the crystallographic orientation of the film, a (111)-oriented lead zirconate titanate PbZrxTi1-xO3 (PZT) needs a higher voltage compared to the (100)-oriented one. Also, we demonstrate that these values are fully correlated to the coercive voltage values determined at the macroscopic scale, using large area electrodes. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.