Quantitative phase analysis is first performed on doped Hafnia films to elucidate the structural origin of unexpected ferroelectricity.

Recently simulation groups have reported the lanthanide series elements as the dopants that have the strongest effect on the stabilization of the ferroelectric non-centrosymmetric orthorhombic phase in hafnium oxide. This finding confirms experimental results for lanthanum and gadolinium showing the highest remanent polarization values of all hafnia-based ferroelectric films until now. However, no comprehensive overview that links structural properties to the electrical performance of the films in detail is available for lanthanide-doped hafnia. La:HfO appears to be a material with a broad window of process parameters, and accordingly, by optimization of the La content in the layer, it is possible to improve the performance of the material significantly. Variations of the La concentration leads to changes in the crystallographic structure in the bulk of the films and at the interfaces to the electrode materials, which impacts the spontaneous polarization, internal bias fields, and with this the field cycling behavior of the capacitor structure. Characterization results are compared to other dopants like Si, Al, and Gd to validate the advantages of the material in applications such as semiconductor memory devices.

After the discovery of ferroelectricity in HfO2, many dopants have been incorporated into the material to improve the ferroelectric properties. The binary mixture of HfO2 and ZrO2, HfxZrx−1O2, showed the widest process window in terms of polarization, but other memory related aspects still need improvement. Recently, the co‐doping of La into a mixed Hf0.5Zr0.5O2, La:HZO, was reported to improve the endurance properties further but the explanation spanning both structural and electrical characteristics of La:HZO and their interaction is still missing. In this work, an extensive study of La:HZO with La content ranging from 0 to 4.3 mol% is conducted and resultant stabilization of nonpolar tetragonal phase, coercive field reduction, endurance improvement, stronger retention loss, and less imprinted hysteresis loop is reported with increasing La concentration. The model simultaneously explaining the electrical and structural properties is presented. In ferroelectric capacitor structures, the depolarization fields originating from nonferroelectric layers at the metal/ferroelectric interface are discussed extensively in previous studies but, here, for the first time, the impact of depolarization fields from nonferroelectric regions in the bulk of the ferroelectric material is reported, which is an important element to explain all the observed trends.

a wealth of different elements from the periodic table [7][8][9] have since exhibited ferroelectric properties. In their original publication, Böscke et al. [10] used ≈10 nm thick films of Si:HfO 2 and found the electrical behavior to evolve from paraelectric (PE) to ferroelectric (FE) and antiferroelectriclike to paraelectric again with a continuous increase in the Si dopant concentration. A similar electric evolution has also been shown for aluminum doping [11] and for (Hf,Zr)O 2 . [6,12] For the latter, an advanced understanding of the phase stabilization could be established, assisted in part by the very wide concentration window over which the changes occur. Ab initio calculations [13] interrogated the impact of surface energy in this system, revealing a phase transition from monoclinic pure HfO 2 to orthorhombic Hf 0.5 Zr 0.5 O 2 to tetragonal pure ZrO 2 for 10 nm film thickness, which aligns well the experimental observations. Moreover, inclusion of an electric field effect explained the antiferroelectriclike polarization hysteresis of pure ZrO 2 as the result of a fieldinduced phase transition from a nonpolar tetragonal to a polar orthorhombic phase. [6,13,14] Thus, instead of the term antiferroelectricity, field-induced ferroelectricity (FFE) is becoming a more precise and commonly used way to describe this behavior. While Si:HfO 2 and Al:HfO 2 have quickly been used in applications such as ferroelectric field effect transistors in 28 nm technology [15,16] and 3D capacitors, [17] basic material studies of doped ferroelectric HfO 2 have lagged those of the (Hf,Zr) O 2 system. By exploring a wide Si concentration range in fine steps, this work aims to gain insight into the phase transformations that occur in a doped HfO 2 system. Results and Discussion Impact of Annealing ConditionsAs a first step, planar capacitor stacks (Figure 1) with ≈36 nm thick HfO 2 films are deposited using a 22:1 HfO 2 :SiO 2 cycle ratio. As shown later, this results in a Si content that is slightly higher than the one that has produced the highest remanent polarization P r values in this study (Figure 7). As visible in Figure 2, the P r (measured under an electric field of 4 MV cm −1 and 10 kHz) increases for anneals at higher temperatures.Silicon doped hafnium oxide was the material used in the original report of ferroelectricity in hafnia in 2011. Since then, it has been subject of many further publications including the demonstration of the world's first ferroelectric field-effect transistor in the state-of-the-art 28 nm technology. Though many studies are conducted with a strong focus on application in memory devices, a comprehensive study on structural stability in these films remains to be seen. In this work, a film thickness of about 36 nm, instead of the 10 nm used in most previous studies, is utilized to carefully probe how the concentration range impacts the evolution of phases, the dopant distribution, the field cycling effects, and their interplay in the macroscopic ferroelectric response of the films. Si:HfO 2 appear...

Ferroelectric hafnia-based thin films are promising candidates for emerging high-density embedded nonvolatile memory technologies, thanks to their compatibility with silicon technology and the possibility of 3D integration. The electrode–ferroelectric interface and the crystallization annealing temperature may play an important role in such memory cells. The top interface in a TiN/Hf0.5Zr0.5O2/TiN metal–ferroelectric–metal stack annealed at different temperatures was investigated with X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. The uniformity and continuity of the 2 nm TiN top electrode was verified by photoemission electron microscopy and conductive atomic force microscopy. Partial oxidation of the electrode at the interface is identified. Hf is reduced near the top interface due to oxygen scavenging by the top electrode. The oxygen vacancy (VO) profile showed a maximum at the top interface (0.71%) and a sharp decrease into the film, giving rise to an internal field. Annealing at higher temperatures did not affect the VO concentration at the top interface but causes the generation of additional VO in the film, leading to a decrease of the Schottky Barrier Height for electrons. The interface chemistry and n-type film doping are believed to be at the origin of several phenomena, including wake-up, imprint, and fatigue. Our results give insights into the physical chemistry of the top interface with the accumulation of defective charges acting as electronic traps, causing a local imprint effect. This may explain the wake-up behavior as well and also can be a possible reason of the weaker endurance observed in these systems when increasing the annealing temperature.