| Ferroelectric materials are a subject of intense research as potential candidates for applications in non-volatile ferroelectric random access memories (FeRAM), piezoelectric actuators, infrared detectors, optical switches and as high dielectric constant materials for dynamic random access memories (DRAMs). With current trends in miniaturization, it becomes important that the fundamental aspects of scaling of ferroelectric and piezoelectric properties in these devices be studied thoroughly and their impact on the device reliability assessed. In keeping with this spirit of miniaturization, the dissertation has two broad themes: (a) Scaling of ferroelectric and piezoelectric properties and (b) The key reliability issue of retention loss. The thesis begins with a look at results on scaling studies of focused-ion-beam milled submicron ferroelectric capacitors using a variety of scanning probe characterization tools. The technique of piezoresponse microscopy, which is rapidly becoming an accepted form of domain imaging in ferroelectrics, has been used in this work for another very important application: providing reliable, repeatable and quantitative numbers for the electromechanical properties of submicron structures milled in ferroelectric films. This marriage of FIB and SPM based characterization of electromechanical and electrical properties has proven unbeatable in the last few years to characterize nanostructures qualitatively and quantitatively.; The second half of this dissertation focuses on polarization relaxation in FeRAMs. In an attempt to understand the nanoscale origins of back-switching of ferroelectric domains, the time dependent relaxation of remnant polarization in epitaxial lead zirconate titanate (PbZr0.2Ti0.8O 3, PZT) ferroelectric thin films (used as a model system), containing a uniform 2-dimensional grid of 90° domains (c-axis in the plane of the film) has been examined using voltage modulated scanning force microscopy. A novel approach of imaging domains with polarization within the plane of the film has been used in this work. Relaxation is seen to occur through the nucleation and growth of reverse domains, which subsequently coalesce and consume the reversed region as a function of time. Results on the effect of local curvature, faceting, and pinning of 180° domain walls on relaxation kinetics are presented. Following the experimental observations, a model for the growth of the reversed domains has been formulated based on the thermo-activated overcoming of pinning sites in these materials. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)... |
