Enhanced ferroelectricity in ultrathin films grown directly on silicon
- Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA (United States)
- Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States). The Molecular Foundry (TMF)
- Oxford Instruments, Santa Barbara, CA (United States)
- SLAC National Accelerator Lab., Menlo Park, CA (United States). Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource (SSRL)
- Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States). Advanced Photon Source (APS)
- Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States). Advanced Light Source (ALS)
- Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA (United States); Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
Ultrathin ferroelectric materials could potentially enable low-power logic and nonvolatile memories. As ferroelectric materials are made thinner, however, the ferroelectricity is usually suppressed. Size effects in ferroelectrics have been thoroughly investigated in perovskite oxides—the archetypal ferroelectric system. Perovskites, however, have so far proved unsuitable for thickness scaling and integration with modern semiconductor processes. In this paper we report ferroelectricity in ultrathin doped hafnium oxide (HfO2), a fluorite-structure oxide grown by atomic layer deposition on silicon. We demonstrate the persistence of inversion symmetry breaking and spontaneous, switchable polarization down to a thickness of one nanometre. Our results indicate not only the absence of a ferroelectric critical thickness but also enhanced polar distortions as film thickness is reduced, unlike in perovskite ferroelectrics. This approach to enhancing ferroelectricity in ultrathin layers could provide a route towards polarization-driven memories and ferroelectric-based advanced transistors. This work shifts the search for the fundamental limits of ferroelectricity to simpler transition-metal oxide systems—that is, from perovskite-derived complex oxides to fluorite-structure binary oxides—in which ‘reverse’ size effects counterintuitively stabilize polar symmetry in the ultrathin regime.
- Research Organization:
- SLAC National Accelerator Lab., Menlo Park, CA (United States). Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource (SSRL); Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States). Advanced Photon Source (APS); Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States). Advanced Light Source (ALS) and The Molecular Foundry (TMF); Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA); USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES). Scientific User Facilities Division; National Science Foundation (NSF); King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) Office of Sponsored Research
- Grant/Contract Number:
- AC02-76SF00515; AC02-06CH11357; AC02-05CH11231; 1753380; OSR-2016-CRG5-2996
- OSTI ID:
- 1633850
- Alternate ID(s):
- OSTI ID: 1770074; OSTI ID: 1894622
- Journal Information:
- Nature (London), Vol. 580, Issue 7804; ISSN 0028-0836
- Publisher:
- Nature Publishing GroupCopyright Statement
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Web of Science
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