Effects of Process-Induced Defects on Polarization Switching in Ferroelectric Tunneling Junction Memory

Abstract

The scaling effects of ferroelectric tunnel junction (FTJ) memory are investigated by evaluating remanent polarization (P-r), coercive field (E-c), and polarization switching speed. Through the analysis on dc tunneling currents and frequency responses of E-c and P-r for FTJs with various sizes, it is found that polarization switching mechanism (domain nucleation limit) is not changed by the width reduction. However, by the length scaling, domain wall spreading-limited switching becomes dominant by process-induced damaged edge regions, leading to the larger P-r and the faster switching speed.