Growth of (111)-oriented epitaxial and textured ferroelectric Y-doped HfO2 films for downscaled devices

In this study, the growth of (111)-oriented epitaxial and textured YO1.5-HfO2 (0.07:0.93 ratio) films using the pulsed laser deposition method is presented. Epitaxial films were prepared on ITO//(111) yttria-stabilized zirconia (YSZ) substrates (ITO: Sn-doped In2O3; YSZ: yttria-stabilized zirconia), while textured films were prepared on (111) Pt/TiOx/SiO2//Si substrates with and without an ITO buffer layer via the grain on grain coherent growth. Inserting an ITO layer increased the volume fraction of the ferroelectric orthorhombic phase. Both the epitaxial and uniaxially textured films exhibited similar ferroelectricity with a remanent polarization of around 10 mu C/cm(2) and a coercive field of 1.9 to 2.0 MV/cm. These results present us with a way of obtaining stable and uniform ferroelectric properties for each grain and device cells consisting of a small number of grains. This opens the door for ultimately miniaturized ferroelectric devices, such as ferroelectric field effect transistors with small gate length and resistive random access memory using ferroelectric tunnel junctions. Published by AIP Publishing.