Imprint characteristics of Pt/Pb(Zr,Ti)O3/Ir capacitors

The dynamic and static imprint characteristics of PZT thin film capacitors prepared by a two step reactive sputtering method were studied. The imprint is caused by an internal field generated by the trapping of electronic charges at interfacial layers that are injected, from the electrode. When unipolar pulse stressing is applied to the PZT capacitor, the cumulative time rather than the pulse cycles accounts more for the dynamic imprint characteristics. The amount of voltage shift in the polarization(P)-voltage(V) curve is reduced when the unipolar pulses are applied at elevated temperatures or a high amplitude pulse is applied. For static imprint stressing, the voltage shift increases with the temperature and is readily removed by application of bipolar pulses to the imprinted PZT capacitor at elevated temperatures. A method to estimate the lifetime limitation as a result of imprint failure in 1T/1C FRAMs is proposed.