Coercive Field Control in Epitaxial Ferroelectric Hf0.5Zr0.5O2 Thin Films by Nanostructure Engineering

• DOI: 10.1021/acsami.4c21787
• Publication Date: 2025-04-15T13:34:51Z
• Authors: Ji Soo Kim; Nives Strkalj; Alexandre Silva; Veniero Lenzi; Luis Marques; Megan O. Hill; Ziyi Yuan; Yi-Xuan Liu; Maximilian T. Becker; Simon M. Fairclough; Caterina Ducati; Yizhi Zhang; Jianan Shen; Zedong Hu; Hongyi Dou; Haiyan Wang; José P. B. Silva; Judith L. MacManu...

The discovery of ferroelectric hafnium oxide has spurred great interest in the semiconductor industry, enabled by its complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor compatibility and scalability. However, many questions remain regarding origin phases tunability properties. In this work, we explore influence laser fluence on coercive field (Ec) 10 nm-thick epitaxial rhombohedrally distorted orthorhombic (r-d o) Hf0.5Zr0.5O2 (HZO) films grown pulsed deposition La0.7Sr0.3MnO3-buffered (001) SrTiO3 substrates. When is decreased from 1.3 J cm-2 to 0.5 cm-2, Ec decreases ∼3.3 ∼2.7 MV/cm. Lower produces pure (111) oriented grains, while higher an additional (11-1) orientation, leading low angle tilt grain boundaries associated dislocations which can act as domain pinning sites. stabilization orientation tilting at energetics are consistent with density functional theory calculations. To achieve a HZO, important for energy-efficient memory applications, energetic growth conditions required, producing most highly perfect films.