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Abstract Hf 0.5 Zr 0.5 O 2 (HZO) thin films are promising candidates for non-volatile memory and other related applications due to their demonstrated ferroelectricity at the nanoscale and compatibility with Si processing. However, one reason that HZO has not been fully scaled into industrial applications is due to its deleterious wake-up and fatigue behavior which leads to an inconsistent remanent polarization during cycling. In this study, we explore an interfacial engineering strategy in which we insert 1 nm Al 2 O 3 interlayers at either the top or bottom HZO/TiN interface of sequentially deposited metal-ferroelectric-metal capacitors. By inserting an interfacial layer while limiting exposure to the ambient environment, we successfully introduce a protective passivating layer of Al 2 O 3 that provides excess oxygen to mitigate vacancy formation at the interface. We report that TiN/HZO/TiN capacitors with a 1 nm Al 2 O 3 at the top interface demonstrate a higher remanent polarization (2P r ∼ 42 μ C cm −2 ) and endurance limit beyond 10 8 cycles at a cycling field amplitude of 3.5 MV cm −1 . We use time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry, energy dispersive spectroscopy, and grazing incidence x-ray diffraction to elucidate the origin of enhanced endurance and leakage properties in capacitors with an inserted 1 nm Al 2 O 3 layer. We demonstrate that the use of Al 2 O 3 as a passivating dielectric, coupled with sequential ALD fabrication, is an effective means of interfacial engineering and enhances the performance of ferroelectric HZO devices.
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Impact of Electric Field Pulse Duration on Ferroelectric Hafnium Zirconium Oxide Thin Film Capacitor Endurance
While ferroelectric HfO2shows promise for use in memory technologies, limited endurance is one factor that challenges its widespread application. In this study, endurance is investigated through field cycling W/Hf0.5Zr0.5O2/W capacitors above the coercive field while manipulating the time‐under‐field using bipolar pulses of varying pulse duration or duty cycle. Both remanent polarization and leakage current increased with increasing pulse duration. Additionally, an order of magnitude decrease in the pulse duration from 20 to 2 μs resulted in an increase in endurance lifetime of nearly two orders of magnitude from 3×106to 2×108cycles. These behaviors are attributed to increasing time‐under–field allowing for charged oxygen vacancy migration, initially unpinning domains, or driving phase transformations before segregating to grain boundaries and electrode interfaces. This oxygen vacancy migration causes increasing polarization before creating conducting percolation paths that result in degradation and premature device failure. This process is suppressed for 2 µs pulse duration field cycling where minimal wake‐up and lower leakage before device failure is observed, suggesting that very short pulses can be used to significantly increase device endurance. These results provide insight into the impact of pulse duration on device performance and highlight consideration of use conditions when endurance testing. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
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- PAR ID:
- 10472005
- Publisher / Repository:
- Wiley
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Physica status solidi A Applications and materials science
- ISSN:
- 1862-6300
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1002/pssa.202300566
