Abstract
Single crystals of BaTiO3 exhibit small switching fields and energies, but thin-film performance is considerably worse, thus precluding their use in next-generation devices. Here, we demonstrate high-quality BaTiO3 thin films with nearly bulk-like properties. Thickness scaling provides access to the coercive voltages (<100 mV) and fields (<10 kV cm−1) required for future applications and results in a switching energy of <2 J cm−3 (corresponding to <2 aJ per bit in a 10 × 10 × 10 nm3 device). While reduction in film thickness reduces coercive voltage, it does so at the expense of remanent polarization. Depolarization fields impact polar state stability in thicker films but fortunately suppress the coercive field, thus driving a deviation from Janovec–Kay–Dunn scaling and enabling a constant coercive field for films <150 nm in thickness. Switching studies reveal fast speeds (switching times of ~2 ns for 25-nm-thick films with 5-µm-diameter capacitors) and a pathway to subnanosecond switching. Finally, integration of BaTiO3 thin films onto silicon substrates is shown. We also discuss what remains to be demonstrated to enable the use of these materials for next-generation devices.
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Data availability
All data supporting the findings of this study are available within the article and its Supplementary Information. Additional data are available from the corresponding author upon request.
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Acknowledgements
This work was primarily supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, Materials Sciences and Engineering Division under contract no. DE-AC02-05-CH11231 (Codesign of Ultra-Low-Voltage Beyond CMOS Microelectronics (MicroelecLBLRamesh)) for the development of materials for low-power microelectronics. E.P., T.G., C.-C.L., D.E.N., H.L., and I.A.Y. acknowledge support from the COFEEE and FEINMAN Programs supported by Intel Corp. W.Z. acknowledges support from the National Science Foundation under grant no. DMR-1708615. D.P. acknowledges support from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement no. 79712. A.D. acknowledges support from the Army Research Office under ETHOS MURI via cooperative agreement no. W911NF-21-2-0162. M.A. acknowledges support from the Army Research Office under grant no. W911NF-21-1-0118. R.R. and L.W.M. acknowledge additional support of the ARL Collaborative for Hierarchical Agile and Resonant Materials under cooperative agreement no. W911NF-19-2-0119. R.R. also acknowledges support from ASCENT, which is one of the SRC-JUMP Centers. Work at the Molecular Foundry was supported by the Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, of the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract No. DE-AC02-05CH11231.
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Y.J. and L.W.M. designed the experiments. Y.J. synthesized the thin films. Y.J. and E.P. fabricated the capacitor-based devices. Y.J., E.P., and A.Q. performed the various electrical, dielectric, and ferroelectric measurements. Y.J. completed structural characterization of the materials. S.S. conducted STEM characterization. M.A. conducted RBS measurements. Y.J., E.P., W.Z., D.P., A.D., H.Z., T.G., C.-C.L., D.E.N., and H.L. contributed to the analysis and understanding of data. Y.J. and L.W.M. wrote the core of the manuscript. I.A.Y., R.R., and L.W.M. supervised the research. All authors contributed to the discussion and manuscript preparation and read the final manuscript.
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Jiang, Y., Parsonnet, E., Qualls, A. et al. Enabling ultra-low-voltage switching in BaTiO3. Nat. Mater. 21, 779–785 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41563-022-01266-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41563-022-01266-6
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