Temperature-Dependent Polarization Switching and Endurance Cycling Properties of HfAlO Ferroelectric Thin Film

In this work, we studied the temperature dependences of endurance cycling properties on atomic layer deposition (ALD) HfAlO metal-ferroelectric-metal (MFM) capacitor in the range from 25 °C, 40 °C, 50 °C and 75 °C. Base on experiment results, it is found the reduction percentage of the ferroelectric memory window (2Pr) from 6.5 μC cm⁻² (25 °C) to 6.3 μC cm⁻² (75 °C) is only 3%, indicating that the ferroelectric HfAlO film has a robust operating temperature stability. The excellent high temperature endurance properties show around 30% of the original 2Pr value (6.3 μC cm⁻²) can be held after being fatigued up to 10⁸ endurance cycles at 75 °C without breakdown. Additionally, using Arrhenius plot fitting (ln(J/E) vs 1/kT) before and after endurance cycles was extracted the changes of trapping energy level to better understand the relationship between leakage current, oxygen vacancies or defects tapping of polarization-switching behavior in HfAlO ferroelectric film.