The nonvolatile application of La-doped ZrO₂ (ZLO) antiferroelectric capacitors is demonstrated in this study, accompanied by systematic investigation of device reliability. A built-in electric field was successfully established through engineered work function modulation. The fabricated nonvolatile (NV) ZLO capacitor exhibits not only avoidance of wake-up and fatigue phenomena typically observed in ferroelectric systems but also demonstration of ultralow coercive voltage (2Vc = 1.2 V) and exceptional endurance exceeding 10¹² cycles. The inherent unique polarization reversal mechanism in NV ZLO device was identified as the origin of a unidirectional imprint effect. Accelerated testing at 85 °C for 10⁴ s yielded conclusive evidence of retention characteristic stability. This investigation provides a novel perspective for the engineering utilization of antiferroelectric materials and facilitates their potential incorporation into advanced integrated circuit architectures.

This study investigated the effect of the bottom electrodes on the ferroelectricity of La-doped HfO ₂ (HLO) capacitors. The remanent polarization (2P _r ) of HLO capacitors with different bottom electrodes, including heavily doped p-type single crystal Ge and Si substrates, TiN, and polycrystalline Ge (poly-Ge), varies significantly. The TiN/HLO/Ge capacitors demonstrate superior ferroelectric performance owing to the absence of a dielectric interfacial layer and the single crystallinity of Ge substrates. Furthermore, improving the crystallinity of bottom electrodes can result in a considerable enhancement in remanent polarization. The pre-annealing process carried out on poly-Ge electrode is found to be effective in stabilizing the orthorhombic phase and enhancing the ferroelectricity of HLO capacitors, with 2P _r values increasing from 14.8 μC/cm ² to 27.5 μC/cm ² . Similar results are observed in capacitors with annealed TiN as bottom electrodes. It is irrefutable that the ferroelectricity of HLO capacitors strongly depends on the crystallinity of the bottom electrode. This discovery offers a solid explanation and experimental evidence for the effect of the bottom electrodes on ferroelectric devices and provides novel insights for optimizing ferroelectric properties.

A compact model is developed to describe degradation behaviors of the polarization–voltage (P–V) and current–voltage (I–V) characteristics in Hf_0.2Zr_0.8O₂ (HZO) anti-ferroelectric (AFE) capacitors. It is confirmed that, during field cycling, the evolution of both P–V and I–V characteristics follows the similar rule related to the Kohlrausch–Williams/Watts (KWWs) random-walk relaxation behavior of the switching polarization. The opposite but similar behavior of voltage shift in both characteristics suggests that charge injection should be an underlying mechanism for the observed polarization imprint. The degradation is attributed to the increasing charge defects at the interface between interfacial layer (IL) and the electrode.

This study experimentally investigated La-doped ZrO₂ (ZLO) antiferroelectric (AFE) capacitors. Significant polarization enhancement is demonstrated in ZLO antiferroelectric capacitors with the optimized La concentration. The ZLO antiferroelectric capacitors reveal superior performance even under a low-temperature process (10¹⁰ cycles). The results in this study opens new avenues for practical antiferroelectric applications and brings promise for their integration into advanced integrated circuits.