Wake-Up Free Ultrathin Ferroelectric HfZrO Films.

The development of the new generation of non-volatile high-density ferroelectric memory requires the utilization of ultrathin ferroelectric films. The most promising candidates are polycrystalline-doped HfO films because of their perfect compatibility with silicon technology and excellent ferroelectric properties. However, the remanent polarization of HfO films is known to degrade when their thickness is reduced to a few nanometers.

Nanoscale Doping and Its Impact on the Ferroelectric and Piezoelectric Properties of HfZrO.

Ferroelectric hafnium oxide thin films-the most promising materials in microelectronics' non-volatile memory-exhibit both unconventional ferroelectricity and unconventional piezoelectricity. Their exact origin remains controversial, and the relationship between ferroelectric and piezoelectric properties remains unclear. We introduce a new method to investigate this issue, which consists in a local controlled modification of the ferroelectric and piezoelectric properties within a single HfZrO capacitor device through local doping and a further comparative nanoscopic analysis of the modified regions.

Bone conducted responses in the neonatal rat auditory cortex.

Rats are born deaf and start hearing at the end of the second postnatal week, when the ear canals open and low-intensity sounds start to evoke responses in the auditory cortex. Here, using μECoG electrode arrays and intracortical silicon probe recordings, we found that bone-conducted (BC) sounds evoked biphasic responses in the auditory cortex starting from postnatal day (P) 8. The initial phase of these responses, generated by thalamocortical input, was followed by intracortical propagation within supragranular layers.

SPP waveguide based on the Goos-Hänchen effect.

We propose and realize a single-mode surface plasmon polariton (SPP) waveguide formed by two parallel grooves on the surface of a high-quality silver film. In the waveguide, the SPP wave undergoes the Goos-Hänchen shift of up to 0.77⋅ at each successive reflection, with the electric field of the SPP wave outside the metal, which significantly reduces the metal loss of the guided SPP wave.

Defects in ferroelectric HfO.

The discovery of ferroelectricity in polycrystalline thin films of doped HfO2 has reignited the expectations of developing competitive ferroelectric non-volatile memory devices. To date, it is widely accepted that the performance of HfO2-based ferroelectric devices during their life cycle is critically dependent on the presence of point defects as well as structural phase polymorphism, which mainly originates from defects either. The purpose of this review article is to overview the impact of defects in ferroelectric HfO2 on its functional properties and the resulting performance of memory devices.