FE4MED - PID2023-147211OB-C21

Electronics has become a ubiquitous and indispensable technological reality in our 21st century daily lives. Countless desktop, portable and wearable devices for communication, productivity and entertainment did not exist a few years ago. Electronic systems integrated in everyday hardware (automobiles, home appliances, etc.) is boosting. Furthermore, the proliferation of wireless 5G (soon 6G) communications, data centers for cloud computing and Artificial Intelligence is increasing rapidly the huge amount of data that must be stored, transmitted and processed, and the increasing electricity consumption will soon become technically unmanageable and unsustainable for the environment. To tackle this tremendous challenge, a key industrial strategy is the development of faster, low-power memory devices, which in many cases rely on the discovery of new materials. The ground-breaking finding of ferroelectricity in CMOS-compatible doped hafnium oxide (HfO2) films in 2011 has placed non-volatile ferroelectric memories in the spotlight of all Semiconductor companies. However, the use of HfO2-based materials in commercial memories needs a deeper understanding and an improvement of their functional properties.
The objective of the coordinated project FE4MED aims at gaining an in-depth knowledge of the science and engineering of the ferroelectric properties of HfO2-based epitaxial thin films to pave the way towards a new generation of CMOS-compatible faster and energy-efficient memory devices.
To achieve this goal, FED4MED brings together career-long expertise in oxide thin films and ferroelectrics, and access to the most advanced infrastructure of two research groups at the Instituto de Ciencia de Materiales de Barcelona (ICMAB) and the Instituto de Nanociencia y Materiales de Aragón (INMA), from three institutions (CSIC, UNIZAR, CUD). FE4MED articulates around 4 specific objectives.
- Objective A will explore two parallel routes to improve reliability (allowing high endurance without degradation of retention) of pulsed laser deposition (PLD)-grown HfO2 ferroelectric devices. One is based on alternative dopant atoms (Y, Ce, Al), and the other on artificial interfaces in nanolaminates.
- Objective B considers the development of a novel chemical method to produce epitaxial HfO2 films: polymer assisted deposition (PAD). The successful implementation of this synthesis route can open new opportunities for low-cost scalable growth of large-area epitaxial HfO2 films.
- Objective C aims to better understand ferroelectricity in HfO2. We will investigate new modes of epitaxial growth of HfO2-based films directly grown on substrates, without and with an electrode, as a function of Zr doping. We will also evaluate the contribution of resistive switching in HfO2 by studying films with different stoichiometry (Zr doping and oxygen vacancies).
- Objective D will investigate key ingredients to develop faster memories by determining the impact of dopant atom and their concentration, point defects and parasitic phases on ferroelectric switching time. HfO2-based devices containing new electrode materials, such as oxide-ion conductors, will be explored.

Funding Bodies