Negative Capacitance and Inductance Behavior of Multi-domain Ferroelectric ZrO₂ Thin Film deposited from Plasma-enhanced Atomic Layer Deposition (PEALD)

Yu-Tung Yin^1*, Yu-Sen Jiang¹, Po-Hsien Cheng², Lain-Jong Li², Samuel C. Pan², Jay Shieh¹, Makoto Shiojiri³, Miin-Jang Chen^1,4

¹Department of Materials Science and Engineering, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan
²Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, Hsinchu, Taiwan
³Department of Physics, Kyoto Institute of Technology, Kyoto, Japan
⁴Graduate Institute of Electronics Engineering, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan

* Presenter:Yu-Tung Yin, email:d9806110@gmail.com

A ZrO₂ thin-film with ferroelectric properties has been deposited from a specific plasma-enhanced atomic layer deposition (PEALD) process. Under nano-beam electron diffraction (EBED) and TEM dark-field image analysis, a distinctive periodically arranged crystalline has been observed, which implies the existence of a multi-domain structure in the ZrO₂ thin film. Based on the existence of positive imaginary part in impedance measurement, enhancement of the small-signal capacitance for the series-connected capacitor, sub-60mV/dec subthreshold swing in nanoscale transistors, and large-signal RLC oscillations in time domain analysis, the inductance property induced by the net polarization switching were observed in the ZrO₂ thin film with the multi-domain structure. The net polarization switching of multi-domain ZrO₂ induces an effective electromotive force, whose behavior is nearly identical to Lenz’s law, leading to the inductive responses and negative capacitance characteristics. As compared with conventional inductors, multi-domain ZrO₂ thin films exhibit superior inductance behavior, which would become a promising material in a verity of applications, including nanoscale transistors, filters, oscillators, and radiofrequency integrated circuits.

Keywords: negative capacitance, ferroelectricity, inductance, multi-domain, ZrO₂