Stability of BaTiO3 thin films on Si

A very high quality BaTiO3/p-Si interface-and BaTiO3 insulator gates with high dielectric constant and low leakage current were produced by RF magnetron sputtering of BaTiO3 on (100) p-Si at a substrate temperature of 500 degrees C, followed by in situ annealing at 500 degrees C for 10 min. The reliability of the dielectric, however, plays an important role in determining the practical usage of ferroelectric random access memory applications. Thermal treatment of Au/BaTiO3/Si capacitors at 150 degrees C for 800 h showed no change of leakage current and a slight increase in leakage from 1.1 X 10(-9) A/cm(2) for the as-deposited BaTiO3 to 1.8 X 10(-9) A/cm(2) for the samples after 1000 h at a field of 1.3 X 10(5) V/cm. The effects of fatigue were also studied and found to not affect the electrical and charge properties of BaTiO3 on Si for 10(10) cycles of fatigue.