Affiliation:
1. China Nanhu Academy of Electronics and Information Technology, Jiaxing 314000, China
2. College of Information Science and Electronic Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310058, China
Abstract
This work systematically investigates the impact of a pre-annealed ZrO2 interfacial layer on the ferroelectric behavior of Hf0.5Zr0.5O2 (HZO) capacitors. The remanent polarization (2Pr) value of HZO capacitors, including configurations such as W/HZO/TiN/p+ Si, W/HZO/(pre-annealed) ZrO2/TiN/p+ Si, W/HZO/SiO2/TiN/p+ Si, and W/HZO/SiO2/p+ Si, exhibits significant variations. The W/HZO/(pre-annealed) ZrO2/TiN/p+ Si capacitor demonstrates superior ferroelectric performance, with a 2Pr value of ~32 µC/cm2. Furthermore, by optimizing the thickness combination of HZO and the pre-annealed ZrO2 interfacial layer, a capacitor with a 10 nm HZO and 2 nm ZrO2 achieves the largest 2Pr value. The pre-annealing process applied to ZrO2 is found to play a very important role in inducing the orthorhombic phase and thus enhancing ferroelectricity. This enhancement is attributed to the pre-annealed 2 nm ZrO2 interfacial layer acting as a structural guide for the subsequent HZO orthorhombic phase, thereby improving the ferroelectric performance of HZO capacitors. These findings provide a comprehensive explanation and experimental verification of the impact of pre-annealed ZrO2 on ferroelectric devices, offering novel insights for the optimization of ferroelectric properties.
Funder
China Nanhu Academy of Electronics and Information Technology
Subject
Electrical and Electronic Engineering,Computer Networks and Communications,Hardware and Architecture,Signal Processing,Control and Systems Engineering
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