Ferroelectric-like Behavior Originating from Oxygen Vacancy Dipoles in Amorphous Film for Non-volatile Memory

• Main Authors: Yue Peng, Genquan Han, Fenning Liu, Wenwu Xiao, Yan Liu, Ni Zhong, Chungang Duan, Ze Feng, Hong Dong, Yue Hao
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: SpringerOpen 2020-06-01
• Series: Nanoscale Research Letters
• Subjects: Amorphous; Al2O3; Ferroelectric; Memory; Oxygen vacancy dipole; Non-volatile field-effect transistor
• Online Access: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s11671-020-03364-3
• ISSN: 1556-276X

Abstract Traditional ferroelectric devices suffer a lack of scalability. Doped HfO2 thin film is promising to solve the scaling problem but challenged by high leakage current and uniformity concern by the polycrystalline nature. Stable ferroelectric-like behavior is firstly demonstrated in a 3.6-nm-thick amorphous Al2O3 film. The amorphous Al2O3 devices are highly scalable, which enable multi-gate non-volatile field-effect transistor (NVFET) with nanometer-scale fin pitch. It also possesses the advantages of low process temperature, high frequency (~GHz), wide memory window, and long endurance, suggesting great potential in VLSI systems. The switchable polarization (P) induced by the voltage-modulated oxygen vacancy dipoles is proposed.