Pulse wake-up and breakdown investigation of ferroelectric yttrium doped HfO2

The wake-up effect in yttrium doped hafnium oxide is investigated by pulse measurements, revealing the initial distribution of oxygen vacancies within symmetrical and asymmetrical layer stacks. It is shown that single pulses are sufficient to achieve a significant wake-up, whereby additional pulses lead to a stronger wake-up. Further cycling induces a degradation of the devices, which is explained by generation of oxygen vacancies and results in an electroforming step where subsequently resistive valence change mechanism switching is observed. The degradation and therefore the generation of oxygen vacancies show a strong frequency dependence, whereby the device lifetime is strongly increased for increasing frequencies.