A 30-nm thick integrated hafnium zirconium oxide nano-electro-mechanical membrane resonator

Abstract

This paper reports a 30 nm-thick integrated nano-electro-mechanical resonator based on atomically engineered ferroelectric hafnium zirconium oxide (Hf0.5Zr0.5O2) film. A 10 nm-thick Hf0.5Zr0.5O2 layer is atomically engineered through capping with 10 nm-thick titanium nitride (TiN) layer and rapid thermal annealing to promote the orthorhombic crystal phase with strong ferroelectric properties. The resulting metal-ferroelectric-metal (MFM) membrane is then patterned to create an integrated nano-electro-mechanical resonator with an overall thickness of 30 nm and a planar-to-vertical aspect ratio exceeding 104:1. Benefiting from large electrostrictive effects in ferroelectric Hf0.5Zr0.5O2, the 30 nm-thick nanomechanical resonator is excited into flexural resonance at 195 kHz with a very large vibration amplitude of ∼100 nm. The transmission response of the nano-electro-mechanical resonator is extracted, using a two-port apodization of the TiN electrodes, showing quality factors (Q) of 15 and 3300 at atmospheric and 10−7 Torr ambient pressures, respectively. Finally, the structural robustness of the MFM nano-membrane is explored through the application of a ∼24 μm deflection, using a point-force by a micro-probe, highlighting the extended elasticity despite the small thickness and ultra-high aspect ratio. The atomic-level thickness, fully integrated operation, high Q, and structural robustness of the Hf0.5Zr0.5O2-based nano-membrane resonator promise its potential for the realization of highly integrated transducers for chip-scale classical and quantum information processing and sensing applications.