Interplay between oxygen defects and dopants: Effect on structure and performance of HfO2-based ferroelectrics

Abstract

Ten years after the first report on ferroelectricity in HfO2, researchers are still occupied unraveling the different causes behind this phenomenon. Among them, oxygen related defects seem to play a major role, affecting both crystalline phase formation and performance of HfO2-based devices. This review surveys the available literature and provides a broad picture on the topic, starting with an overview of existing oxygen-related defects, assessing the extensive calculations and experimental reports on phase stabilization in both undoped and doped HfO2 and concluding with a discussion of device reliability involving oxygen vacancies, first in more classical HfO2 applications such as MOSFET high-k metal gate and resistive switching devices and later in the three major groups of ferroelectric non-volatile memory devices. © the Partner Organisations.