A Study on Imprint Behavior of Ferroelectric Hafnium Oxide Caused by High‐Temperature Annealing

Abstract

Hafnium oxide is found to be a favorable material for ferroelectric nonvolatile memory devices. Its compatibility with complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor processes, the relatively low crystallization temperature when zirconium‐doped, and the thickness scaling are among the advantageous properties of hafnium oxide. Different requirements must be fulfilled for different applications of hafnium oxide. Herein, high‐temperature annealing and operation conditions are analyzed in order to investigate nonvolatile memories for automotive applications. A strong imprint behavior (shift in coercive voltages) is observed after annealing hafnium–zirconium–oxide thin films at temperatures varied between 100 and 200 °C. The imprint behavior is a significant challenge in many applications. Therefore, to reduce/recover the undesirable imprint behavior caused by high‐temperature treatment, two different ways are successfully examined and delineated here: endurance cycling and applying high electric fields.

Mechanism of the Wake-Up and the Split-Up in AlOx/Hf0.5Zr0.5Ox Film

“…Ferroelectric HfO 2 thin film has been investigated with various fabrications for applications because of their scalability and compatibility with the traditional complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor [ 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 , 11 , 12 , 13 ]. Particularly for reliability in applications such as memory devices and negative capacitance devices, the evolution of the P – V hysteresis loop has been studied during polarization switching cycles [ 14 , 15 , 16 , 17 ].…”