Impact of Ferroelectric Layer Thickness on Reliability of Back-End-of-Line-Compatible Hafnium Zirconium Oxide Films

Research output: Contribution to journalResearch articleContributedpeer-review

Contributors

  • Ayse Sünbül - , Fraunhofer Institute for Electronic Nano Systems (Author)
  • David Lehninger - , Fraunhofer Institute for Electronic Nano Systems (Author)
  • Raik Hoffmann - , Fraunhofer Institute for Electronic Nano Systems (Author)
  • Ricardo Olivo - , Fraunhofer Institute for Electronic Nano Systems (Author)
  • Aditya Prabhu - , Fraunhofer Institute for Electronic Nano Systems (Author)
  • Fred Schöne - , Fraunhofer Institute for Electronic Nano Systems (Author)
  • Kati Kühnel - , Fraunhofer Institute for Electronic Nano Systems (Author)
  • Moritz Döllgast - , Fraunhofer Institute for Electronic Nano Systems (Author)
  • Nora Haufe - , Fraunhofer Institute for Electronic Nano Systems (Author)
  • Lisa Roy - , Fraunhofer Institute for Electronic Nano Systems (Author)
  • Thomas Kämpfe - , Fraunhofer Institute for Electronic Nano Systems (Author)
  • Konrad Seidel - , Fraunhofer Institute for Electronic Nano Systems (Author)
  • Lukas M. Eng - , Institute of Applied Physics, Clusters of Excellence ct.qmat: Complexity and Topology in Quantum Matter (Author)

Abstract

Due to its ferroelectricity, hafnium oxide has attracted a lot of attention for ferroelectric memory devices. Amongst different dopant elements, zirconium is found to be beneficial due to the relatively low crystallization temperature of hafnium-zirconium-oxide (HZO), thus it is back-end-of-line (BEoL) compatible. The thickness of HZO has a significant impact on ferroelectric device reliability. High operation temperatures and high endurance are important criteria depending on the application. Herein, various HZO thicknesses (7, 8, and 10 nm) in MFM (metal-ferroelectric-metal) capacitors are investigated at varying operation temperatures (25 to 175 °C) at varying electric fields (±3 to ±5.4 MV cm−1) with respect to polarization, leakage current, endurance, and retention. 7 nm HZO showed promising results with an endurance of 107 cycles, with a low leakage current density, and almost no retention loss after 10 years. Extrapolated results at operation conditions (±2 MV cm−1 and 10 MHz) showed an endurance of 1010 cycles.

Details

Original languageEnglish
Article number2201124
Number of pages6
JournalAdvanced engineering materials
Volume25
Issue number4
Publication statusPublished - Feb 2023
Peer-reviewedYes

External IDs

WOS 000864405100001
ORCID /0000-0002-2484-4158/work/142257565

Keywords

Keywords

  • back-end-of-line, ferroelectric, hafnium zirconium oxide, high-temperature reliability, MFM capacitors, Ferroelectric, Hafnium zirconium oxide, Back-end-of-line, High-temperature reliability