The influence of crystallographic texture on structural and electrical properties in ferroelectric Hf_0.5Zr_0.5O₂

Ferroelectric (Hf,Zr)O₂ thin films have attracted increased interest from the ferroelectrics community and the semiconductor industry due to their ability to exhibit ferroelectricity at nanoscale dimensions. The properties and performance of the ferroelectric (Hf,Zr)O₂ films generally depend on various factors such as surface energy (e.g., through grain size or thickness), defects (e.g., through dopants, oxygen vacancies, or impurities), electrodes, interface quality, and preferred crystallographic orientation (also known as crystallographic texture or simply texture) of grains and/or domains. Although some factors affecting properties and performance have been studied extensively, the effects of texture on the material properties are still not understood. Here, the influence of texture of the bottom electrode and Hf_0.5Zr_0.5O₂ (HZO) films on properties and performance is reported. The uniqueness of this work is the use of a consistent deposition process known as Sequential, No-Atmosphere Processing (SNAP) that produces films with different preferred orientations yet minimal other differences. The results shown in this study provide both new insight on the importance of the bottom electrode texture and new fundamental processing-structure–property relationships for the HZO films.