Ferroelectric HfO2-based materials for next-generation ferroelectric memories

Ferroelectric random access memory (FeRAM) based on conventional ferroelectric perovskites, such as Pb(Zr,Ti)O-3 and SrBi2Ta2O9, has encountered bottlenecks on memory density and cost, because those conventional perovskites suffer from various issues mainly including poor complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS)-compatibility and limited scalability. Next-generation cost-efficient, high-density FeRAM shall therefore rely on a material revolution. Since the discovery of ferroelectricity in Si:HfO2 thin films in 2011, HfO2-based materials have aroused widespread interest in the field of FeRAM, because they are CMOS-compatible and can exhibit robust ferroelectricity even when the film thickness is scaled down to below 10 nm. A review on this new class of ferroelectric materials is therefore of great interest. In this paper, the most appealing topics about ferroelectric HfO2-based materials including origins of ferroelectricity, advantageous material properties, and current and potential applications in FeRAM, are briefly reviewed.