Patterning and switching of nanosize ferroelectric memory cells

A fundamental limitation on the recent development of nonvolatile ferroelectric memories in 64 Mbit–4 Gbit densities has been the ability to scale ferroelectric capacitor cell sizes below 1 μm2. In the present work, ferroelectric memory cells with lateral sizes down to 100 nm were fabricated by electron-beam direct writing. Switching of single 100 nm cells was achieved and piezoelectric hysteresis loops were recorded using a scanning probe microscope working in piezoresponse mode.