Oxygen scavenging of HfZrO(2)-based capacitors for improving ferroelectric properties

HfO(2)-based ferroelectric (FE) materials have emerged as a promising material for non-volatile memory applications because of remanent polarization, scalability of thickness below 10 nm, and compatibility with complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor technology. However, in the metal/FE/insulator/semiconductor, it is difficult to improve switching voltage (V(sw)), endurance, and retention properties due to the interfacial layer (IL), which inevitably grows during the fabrication. Here, we proposed and demonstrated oxygen scavenging to reduce the IL thickness in an HfZrO(x)-based capacitor and the thinner IL was confirmed by cross-sectional transmission electron microscopy. V(sw) of a capacitor with scavenging decreased by 18% and the same P(r) could be obtained at a lower voltage than a capacitor without scavenging. In addition, excellent endurance properties up to 10(6) cycles were achieved. We believe oxygen scavenging has great potential for future HfZrO(x)-based memory device applications.