Endurance beyond 10 billion cycles in wurtzite ferroelectrics by confining nitrogen vacancies.
basic_science · Level V
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- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 42721227.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1126/science.aec7337.
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Abstract
Wurtzite ferroelectrics could provide a route to wafer-scale integrated ferroelectric memories but are limited by endurance, typically failing at ~10<sup>8</sup> cycles. We identified nitrogen-vacancy (<i>V</i><sub>N</sub>) clustering and long-range percolative migration as the defect-mediated pathways that drive leakage-current growth and dielectric breakdown. We combined a spatially engineered aluminum scandium nitride/aluminum nitride (AlScN/AlN) superlattice with a dynamic recovery protocol to spatially and energetically confine <i>V</i><sub>N</sub> evolution that stabilized defect topology under cyclic electrical stress and suppressed hard breakdown and ferroelectric degradation. We demonstrated endurance beyond 10<sup>10</sup> cycles in wurtzite ferroelectrics under a complete-switching criterion (remnant polarization ≥ 100 microcoulombs per square centimeter). These findings establish <i>V</i><sub>N</sub> confinement as a scalable defect-topology framework that couples atomic-scale defect stability to reliable ultradense ferroelectric memories and provide guidance for next-generation nonvolatile memory technologies.