Abstract
Since the discovery of ferroelectricity in HfO2-based materials which are comparable to the complementary metal-oxide–semiconductor (CMOS) fabrication process—a negative capacitance effect in the HfO2-based materials has been actively studied. Owing to nonuniform polarization-switching (which is originated from the polycrystalline structures of HfO2-based ferroelectric materials), the formation of multi-domains in the HfO2-based materials is inevitable. In previous studies, perovskite-based ferroelectric materials (which is not compatible to CMOS fabrication process) were utilized to improve the electrical properties of a nanoelectromechanical (NEM) relay. In this study, the effects of a multi-domain HfO2-based ferroelectric material on the electrical characteristics of an NEM relay were theoretically examined. Specifically, the number of domains, domain inhomogeneity and ferroelectric thickness of the multi-domain ferroelectric material were modulated and subsequently, its corresponding results were discussed. It was observed that the switching voltage variation was decreased with increasing the number of domains and decreasing domain inhomogeneity. In addition, the switching voltage was decreased with increasing ferroelectric thickness, owing to enhanced voltage amplification.
Highlights
In the era of the Internet of things (IoTs), various objects are connected to each other, allowing the real-time sharing and processing of data
Where VF, VN, VFN and Q are the voltages applied to the ferroelectric capacitor, NEM relay, negative capacitance (NC) + NEM
The results indicate that the switching voltage distribution of the NEM relay with the multi-domain ferroelectric material becomes larger as the number of domains decreases
Summary
In the era of the Internet of things (IoTs), various objects are connected to each other, allowing the real-time sharing and processing of data. The energy efficiency of conventional complementary metal-oxide–semiconductor (CMOS)-based devices is limited, primarily because of inevitable off-state leakage current in CMOS devices To address this energy dissipation problem, nanoelectromechanical (NEM) relays have received lots of attention owing to their negligible off-state leakage current and steep switching behaviors [1,2]. Several studies have been proposed to improve the electrical characteristics as well as to lower the operating voltages of NEM relays by connecting them to a ferroelectric capacitor in series [5,6]. This system takes advantage of using the negative capacitance (NC) effect in ferroelectric materials. Numerous experimental studies have demonstrated that the NC effect occurs in Electronics 2020, 9, 1208; doi:10.3390/electronics9081208 www.mdpi.com/journal/electronics
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