Effect of hydrogen derived from oxygen source on low-temperature ferroelectric TiN/Hf0.5Zr0.5O2/TiN capacitors

The ferroelectric (FE) properties of 10-nm-thick Hf0.5Zr0.5O2 (HZO) films deposited by an atomic layer deposition technique were improved by adopting O3 as an oxygen source instead of H2O. All HZO films were annealed at 400 °C for 1 min in an N2 atmosphere after TiN top electrode deposition. Regardless of the oxygen source, the HZO films exhibited the formation of a noncentrosymmetric orthorhombic phase, which is responsible for FE behavior with the suppression of the monoclinic phase. However, compared to the O3-based HZO film, it was confirmed that the H2O-based HZO film was more incorporated with hydrogen derived from H2O, thereby degrading FE polarization and leakage behavior. The results indicate that the strategy of using O3 as the oxygen source is useful for the fabrication and integration of FE HZO films for next-generation memory applications.