Enhanced Fatigue and Data Retention Characteristics of Pb(Zr, Ti)O3 Thin Films by the Selectively Nucleated Lateral Crystallization Method

Abstract

Fatigue and data retention characteristics of Pb(Zr, Ti)O3 (PZT) thin films by the selectively nucleated lateral crystallization (SNLC) method were investigated. By placing the top Pt electrode inside the grain and directly on the grain boundary, we measured and compared the electrical properties of PZT thin films based on the grain boundary. When there was no grain boundary underneath the top electrode, no loss in switched polarization up to 2×1011 cycles and no data loss after 30000 s of memory retention at room temperature with the Pt/PZT/Pt structure were observed. However, serious degradation of the fatigue and data retention characteristics of PZT thin films occurred when there was a grain boundary in the area studied. In this study, we show that when there is no grain boundary in the area measured, no degradation such as fatigue and retention occurs, thus the main source of degradation is the grain boundary in PZT thin films.