Fatigue and aging in ferroelectric PbZr0.2Ti0.8O3/YBa2Cu3O7 heterostructures

Abstract

We have carried out fatigue, aging and retention studies of epitaxial ferroelectric PbZr_0.2Ti_0.8O₃/YBa₂Cu₃O₇ heterostructures, grown by pulsed laser deposition. The capacitors show fatigue lifetime of better than 10¹⁰ cycles. We find that the fatigue process is reversible by the application of a 2 second “pulsed poling” treatment at the fatigue voltage. These results suggest that the loss of switchable polarization with cycling is due to domain wall pinning; however, the role of space charge effects at the electrodefilm interfaces cannot be ruled out. Indeed, the overall fatigue performance may be controlled by a combination of these two factors. These heterostructures show excellent resistance to aging (extrapolated lifetime of better than 10¹¹ seconds and good logic state retention characteristics (10¹¹ seconds).