High endurance (>1012) via optimized polarization switching ratio for Hf0.5Zr0.5O2-based FeRAM

The endurance degradation of HfO2-based ferroelectric films limits their development toward practical applications. In this work, we systematically investigate the ferroelectric endurance properties of Hf0.5Zr0.5O2 (HZO) film under various pulse voltages and pulse widths, and it is found that the fatigue severity increases first and then decreases with increasing pulse voltage or width. The nonmonotonic fatigue trend explains the controversial results in the literature that both faster and slower fatigues with increasing voltage were observed in HZO. Accordingly, low voltages of ±1.6 V/100 ns are applied for cycling the HZO device to achieve weaker fatigue and a sufficiently switched ferroelectric polarization (7–12 μC cm−2), and a recovery method by introducing wake-up effect is utilized to realize an enhanced endurance >1.01 × 1012 (>5.0 × 1013 in expectation). Our work provides a universal way to weaken fatigue and improve endurance performance of HfO2-based ferroelectric random access memory devices.