Effect of Annealing Temperature on Minimum Domain Size of Ferroelectric Hafnia

Abstract

Here, we optimized the annealing temperature of HZO/TiN thin film heterostructure via multiscale analysis of remnant polarization, crystallographic phase, minimum ferroelectric domain size, and average grain size. We found that the remnant polarization was closely related to the relative amount of the orthorhombic phase whereas the minimum domain size was to the relative amount of the monoclinic phase. The minimum domain size was obtained at the annealing temperature of 500$^\cird$C while the optimum remnant polarization and capacitance at the annealing temperature of 600$^\circ$C. We conclude that the minimum domain size is more important than the sheer magnitude of remnant polarization considering the retention and fatigue of switchable polarization in nanoscale ferroelectric devices. Our results are expected to contribute to the development of ultra-low-power logic transistors and next-generation non-volatile memory devices.