No Arabic abstract
Silicon ferroelectric field-effect transistors (FeFETs) with low-k interfacial layer (IL) between ferroelectric gate stack and silicon channel suffers from high write voltage, limited write endurance and large read-after-write latency due to early IL breakdown and charge trapping and detrapping at the interface. We demonstrate low voltage, high speed memory operation with high write endurance using an IL-free back-end-of-line (BEOL) compatible FeFET. We fabricate IL-free FeFETs with 28nm channel length and 126nm width under a thermal budget <400C by integrating 5nm thick Hf0.5Zr0.5O2 gate stack with amorphous Indium Tungsten Oxide (IWO) semiconductor channel. We report 1.2V memory window and read current window of 10^5 for program and erase, write latency of 20ns with +/-2V write pulses, read-after-write latency <200ns, write endurance cycles exceeding 5x10^10 and 2-bit/cell programming capability. Array-level analysis establishes IL-free BEOL FeFET as a promising candidate for logic-compatible high-performance on-chip buffer memory and multi-bit weight cell for compute-in-memory accelerators.
In tunnel junctions with ferroelectric barriers, switching the polarization direction modifies the electrostatic potential profile and the associated average tunnel barrier height. This results in strong changes of the tunnel transmission and associated resistance. The information readout in ferroelectric tunnel junctions (FTJs) is thus resistive and non-destructive, which is an advantage compared to the case of conventional ferroelectric memories (FeRAMs). Initially, endurance limitation (i.e. fatigue) was the main factor hampering the industrialization of FeRAMs. Systematic investigations of switching dynamics for various ferroelectric and electrode materials have resolved this issue, with endurance now reaching $10^{14}$ cycles. Here we investigate data retention and endurance in fully patterned submicron Co/BiFeO$_3$/Ca$_{0.96}$Ce$_{0.04}$MnO$_3$ FTJs. We report good reproducibility with high resistance contrasts and extend the maximum reported endurance of FTJs by three orders of magnitude ($4times10^6$ cycles). Our results indicate that here fatigue is not limited by a decrease of the polarization or an increase of the leakage but rather by domain wall pinning. We propose directions to access extreme and intermediate resistance states more reliably and further strengthen the potential of FTJs for non-volatile memory applications.
Integrating negative capacitance (NC) into the field-effect transistors promises to break fundamental limits of power dissipation known as Boltzmann tyranny. However, realization of the stable static negative capacitance in the non-transient regime without hysteresis remains a daunting task. Here we show that the failure to implement the NC stems from the lack of understanding that its origin is fundamentally related with the inevitable emergence of the domain state. We put forth an ingenious design for the ferroelectric domain-based field-effect transistor with the stable reversible static negative capacitance. Using dielectric coating of the ferroelectric capacitor enables the tunability of the negative capacitance improving tremendously the performance of the field-effect transistors.
The field-effect mobility of graphene devices is discussed. We argue that the graphene ballistic mean free path can only be extracted by taking into account both, the electrical characteristics and the channel length dependent mobility. In doing so we find a ballistic mean free path of 300nm at room-temperature for a carrier concentration of ~1e12/cm2 and that a substantial series resistance of around 300ohmum has to be taken into account. Furthermore, we demonstrate first quantum capacitance measurements on single-layer graphene devices.
Fundamental physical properties limiting the performance of spin field effect transistors are compared to those of ordinary (charge-based) field effect transistors. Instead of raising and lowering a barrier to current flow these spin transistors use static spin-selective barriers and gate control of spin relaxation. The different origins of transistor action lead to distinct size dependences of the power dissipation in these transistors and permit sufficiently small spin-based transistors to surpass the performance of charge-based transistors at room temperature or above. This includes lower threshold voltages, smaller gate capacitances, reduced gate switching energies and smaller source-drain leakage currents.
The fundamental property of most single-electron devices with quasicontinuous quasiparticle spectrum on the island is the periodicity of their transport characteristics in the gate voltage. This property is robust even with respect to placing the ferroelectric insulators in the source and drain tunnel junctions. We show that placing the ferroelectric inside the gate capacitance breaks this periodicity. The current-voltage characteristics of this SET strongly depends on the ferroelectric polarization and shows the giant memory-effect even for negligible ferroelectric hysteresis making this device promising for memory applications.