Hongdi Wu, Boxu Yan, Gang Bai, Wenbin Tang, Guodong Zhang, Yecheng Ding, Xubing Lu, Zhibo Yan, Jun-Ming Liu(刘俊明), Guoliang Yuan(袁国亮)

High-temperature stability of Hf_0.5Zr_0.5O₂-based ferroelectric memory devices

Acta Materialia 294, 121179(2025)

The rapid development of high-temperature electronic devices requires new memory devices capable of read and write operations at high-temperature for approximately billion cycles. In this study, we explored the failure mechanism of the ferroelectric memory device with W/Hf_0.5Zr_0.5O₂/W structure and significantly improved its high-temperature stability during write/read cycles even at 200 °C. The generation of new oxygen vacancies during polarization switching process led to the significant increase in the leakage current and final electric breakdown. The leakage current after 10⁹ write/read cycles decreased by > 99.998% at 200 °C when a zero-electric-field rest time of 2 μs was integrated between the two pulsed electric fields. Consequently, the maximum write/read cycles increased from 7.2 × 10⁸ to 1.4 × 10¹⁰ at 200 °C, demonstrating excellent high-temperature stability. These findings provide a basis for further developing high-density ferroelectric memory devices with ultra-fast read-write capabilities and outstanding high-temperature stability.

URL: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actamat.2025.121179