Evaluation of polarization characteristics in metal/ferroelectric/semiconductor capacitors and ferroelectric field-effect transistors

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel measurement technique for accurately evaluating ferroelectric polarization in FeFETs by addressing depletion effects that hinder traditional methods.

Contribution

A new measurement approach that suppresses deep depletion effects, enabling precise ferroelectric characterization in FeFETs compared to standard capacitor methods.

Findings

Deep depletion limits ferroelectric evaluation in capacitors.

Connecting source, drain, and substrate suppresses deep depletion.

Technique enables accurate ferroelectric polarization measurement in FeFETs.

Abstract

In this study, we propose a measurement technique for evaluating ferroelectric polarization characteristics in ferroelectric field-effect transistors (FeFETs). Different from standard metal/ferroelectric/metal capacitors, the depletion and inversion phenomena in semiconductor substrates have to be carefully taken into account when evaluating the ferroelectric properties using fast voltage sweep as input. The non-equilibrium deep depletion is found to be the limiting factor for the accurate evaluation of ferroelectric properties in metal/ferroelectric/semiconductor capacitors. By connecting the source, drain, and substrate of the FeFET together during the polarization measurement, the deep depletion can be suppressed and the ferroelectricity of the ferroelectric gate can be accurately evaluated. The present technique is a powerful method for capturing the polarization states in FeFETs, enabling new approaches for device characterization and fundamental study, and overcomes the limitation found in the conventional polarization measurement on 2-terminal metal/ferroelectric/semiconductor capacitors.