Enhanced Remnant Polarization (30 μ C/cm 2) and Retention of Ferroelectric Hf 0.5 Zr 0.5 O 2 by NH 3 Plasma Treatment.

In this letter, NH3 plasma treatment was utilized to improve the ferroelectric property of widely used TiN/HfxZryO2(HZO)/TiN capacitors. The developed metal-ferroelectric-metal (MFM) structure shows high remnant polarization (Pr) of $30 ~\mu \text{C}$ /cm2 after 10-min NH3 treatment at bottom TiN electrode. Materials characterization were subject to investigate the behind mechanism. A higher ferroelectric o-phase formation in NH3-treated HZO device is revealed by grazing incidence X-ray diffraction (GIXRD). In addition, the high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) indicates that the NH3 treatment optimizes the interface quality by restraining of the interfacial layer (IL) including intrinsic TiOxNy dead-layer and non-ferroelectric layer. Furthermore, the improved interface engineering also suppressed the imprint effect, which prompts the retention improvement of TiN/HfxZryO2/TiN ferroelectric capacitors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]