Ferroelectric Switching in Sub-20 nm Aluminum Scandium Nitride Thin Films

Dixiong Wang; Jeffrey Zheng; Pariasadat Musavigharavi; Wanlin Zhu; Alexandre C. Foucher; Susan E. Trolier-Mckinstry; Eric A. Stach; Roy H. Olsson

doi:10.1109/LED.2020.3034576

Ferroelectric Switching in Sub-20 nm Aluminum Scandium Nitride Thin Films

Dixiong Wang, Jeffrey Zheng, Pariasadat Musavigharavi, Wanlin Zhu, Alexandre C. Foucher, Susan E. Trolier-Mckinstry, Eric A. Stach, Roy H. Olsson

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

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Abstract

Ferroelectric switching was studied in 20 nm thick Al0.68Sc0.32N and Al0.64Sc0.36N films (with 4 nm surface oxides) on platinized silicon wafers by multiple electrical characterization methods. Positive up negative down (PUND) measurements were conducted using 100 \mu s monopolar triangular waveform excitation. At room temperature, Al0.68Sc0.32N exhibited an apparent remanent polarization, P r}} = {140}\,\,\mu C /cm2 and a coercive field, E c}} = {6.5 MV/cm, while film leakage prevented quantitative measurement of the Al0.64Sc0.36N ferroelectric properties. Remanent polarizations of 75~\mu C /cm2 for Al0.68Sc0.32N and 25\mu C /cm2for Al0.64Sc0.36N were measured at 120 K. Partial ferroelectric switching was confirmed at room temperature for both materials via the measured transverse piezoelectric coefficients (e31, f) of -1.3 C/m2 (down-switching) and -0.3 C/m2 (up-switching) for Al0.68Sc0.32N, and -0.9 C/m2 (down-switching) and -0.7 C/m2 (up-switching) for Al0.64Sc0.36N.

Original language	English
Article number	9241842
Pages (from-to)	1774-1777
Number of pages	4
Journal	IEEE Electron Device Letters
Volume	41
Issue number	12
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1109/LED.2020.3034576
State	Published - Dec 2020
Externally published	Yes

Funding

Manuscript received October 6, 2020; revised October 24, 2020; accepted October 26, 2020. Date of publication October 28, 2020; date of current version November 24, 2020. This work was supported in part by Semiconductor Research Corporation (SRC), and in part by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), Tunable Ferroelectric Nitrides (TUFEN) Program under Grant HR00112090046 and Grant HR00112090047. This work was carried out in part at the Singh Center for Nanotechnology, which is supported by the NSF National Nanotechnology Coordinated Infrastructure Program under Grant NNCI-1542153. The authors gratefully acknowledge use of facilities and instrumentation supported by the NSF through the University of Pennsylvania Materials Research Science and Engineering Center (MRSEC) under Grant DMR-1720530. The review of this letter was arranged by Editor U. Schroeder. (Corresponding author: Dixiong Wang.) Dixiong Wang, Pariasadat Musavigharavi, and Roy H. Olsson III are with the Department of Electrical and Systems Engineering, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104 USA (e-mail: dixiongw@ seas.upenn.edu).

Funders	Funder number
University of Pennsylvania Materials Research Science and Engineering Center
National Science Foundation	NNCI-1542153
Semiconductor Research Corporation
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency	HR00112090047, HR00112090046
Materials Research Science and Engineering Center, Harvard University	DMR-1720530

Keywords

Aluminum scandium nitride
ferroelectric memory
ferroelectric thin film

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10.1109/LED.2020.3034576

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title = "Ferroelectric Switching in Sub-20 nm Aluminum Scandium Nitride Thin Films",

abstract = "Ferroelectric switching was studied in 20 nm thick Al0.68Sc0.32N and Al0.64Sc0.36N films (with 4 nm surface oxides) on platinized silicon wafers by multiple electrical characterization methods. Positive up negative down (PUND) measurements were conducted using 100 \mu s monopolar triangular waveform excitation. At room temperature, Al0.68Sc0.32N exhibited an apparent remanent polarization, P r}} = {140}\,\,\mu C /cm2 and a coercive field, E c}} = {6.5 MV/cm, while film leakage prevented quantitative measurement of the Al0.64Sc0.36N ferroelectric properties. Remanent polarizations of 75~\mu C /cm2 for Al0.68Sc0.32N and 25\mu C /cm2for Al0.64Sc0.36N were measured at 120 K. Partial ferroelectric switching was confirmed at room temperature for both materials via the measured transverse piezoelectric coefficients (e31, f) of -1.3 C/m2 (down-switching) and -0.3 C/m2 (up-switching) for Al0.68Sc0.32N, and -0.9 C/m2 (down-switching) and -0.7 C/m2 (up-switching) for Al0.64Sc0.36N.",

keywords = "Aluminum scandium nitride, ferroelectric memory, ferroelectric thin film",

author = "Dixiong Wang and Jeffrey Zheng and Pariasadat Musavigharavi and Wanlin Zhu and Foucher, {Alexandre C.} and Trolier-Mckinstry, {Susan E.} and Stach, {Eric A.} and Olsson, {Roy H.}",

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AU - Wang, Dixiong

AU - Zheng, Jeffrey

AU - Musavigharavi, Pariasadat

AU - Zhu, Wanlin

AU - Foucher, Alexandre C.

AU - Trolier-Mckinstry, Susan E.

AU - Stach, Eric A.

AU - Olsson, Roy H.

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N2 - Ferroelectric switching was studied in 20 nm thick Al0.68Sc0.32N and Al0.64Sc0.36N films (with 4 nm surface oxides) on platinized silicon wafers by multiple electrical characterization methods. Positive up negative down (PUND) measurements were conducted using 100 \mu s monopolar triangular waveform excitation. At room temperature, Al0.68Sc0.32N exhibited an apparent remanent polarization, P r}} = {140}\,\,\mu C /cm2 and a coercive field, E c}} = {6.5 MV/cm, while film leakage prevented quantitative measurement of the Al0.64Sc0.36N ferroelectric properties. Remanent polarizations of 75~\mu C /cm2 for Al0.68Sc0.32N and 25\mu C /cm2for Al0.64Sc0.36N were measured at 120 K. Partial ferroelectric switching was confirmed at room temperature for both materials via the measured transverse piezoelectric coefficients (e31, f) of -1.3 C/m2 (down-switching) and -0.3 C/m2 (up-switching) for Al0.68Sc0.32N, and -0.9 C/m2 (down-switching) and -0.7 C/m2 (up-switching) for Al0.64Sc0.36N.

AB - Ferroelectric switching was studied in 20 nm thick Al0.68Sc0.32N and Al0.64Sc0.36N films (with 4 nm surface oxides) on platinized silicon wafers by multiple electrical characterization methods. Positive up negative down (PUND) measurements were conducted using 100 \mu s monopolar triangular waveform excitation. At room temperature, Al0.68Sc0.32N exhibited an apparent remanent polarization, P r}} = {140}\,\,\mu C /cm2 and a coercive field, E c}} = {6.5 MV/cm, while film leakage prevented quantitative measurement of the Al0.64Sc0.36N ferroelectric properties. Remanent polarizations of 75~\mu C /cm2 for Al0.68Sc0.32N and 25\mu C /cm2for Al0.64Sc0.36N were measured at 120 K. Partial ferroelectric switching was confirmed at room temperature for both materials via the measured transverse piezoelectric coefficients (e31, f) of -1.3 C/m2 (down-switching) and -0.3 C/m2 (up-switching) for Al0.68Sc0.32N, and -0.9 C/m2 (down-switching) and -0.7 C/m2 (up-switching) for Al0.64Sc0.36N.

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Ferroelectric Switching in Sub-20 nm Aluminum Scandium Nitride Thin Films

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