Structural incommensurate modulation rule in hexagonal Ba(Ti1-xMx)O3-δ (M = Mn, Fe) multiferroics AIP Advances 2, 042129 (2012) Water assisted gate induced temporal surface charge distribution probed by electrostatic force microscopy J. Appl. Phys. 112, 084329 (2012) Influence of target composition and deposition temperature on the domain structure of BiFeO3 thin films AIP Advances 2, 042104 (2012) Nanodomain structures formation during polarization reversal in uniform electric field in strontium barium niobate single crystals J. Appl. Phys. 112, 064117 (2012) The effect of the top electrode interface on the hysteretic behavior of epitaxial ferroelectric Pb(Zr,Ti)O3 thin films with bottom SrRuO3 electrode J. Appl. Phys. 112, 064116 (2012) Additional information on J. Appl. Phys. Structural and electrical evidence for a ferroelectric phase in yttrium doped hafnium oxide thin films is presented. A doping series ranging from 2.3 to 12.3 mol% YO 1.5 in HfO 2 was deposited by a thermal atomic layer deposition process. Grazing incidence X-ray diffraction of the 10 nm thick films revealed an orthorhombic phase close to the stability region of the cubic phase. The potential ferroelectricity of this orthorhombic phase was confirmed by polarization hysteresis measurements on titanium nitride based metal-insulator-metal capacitors. For 5.2 mol% YO 1.5 admixture the remanent polarization peaked at 24 lC=cm 2 with a coercive field of about 1.2 MV=cm. Considering the availability of conformal deposition processes and CMOS-compatibility, ferroelectric Y:HfO 2 implies high scaling potential for future, ferroelectric memories.

We report the observation of ferroelectricity in capacitors based on hafnium-zirconium-oxide. Hf0.5Zr0.5O2 thin films of 7.5 to 9.5 nm thickness were found to exhibit ferroelectric polarization-voltage hysteresis loops when integrated into TiN-based metal-insulator-metal capacitors. A remnant polarization of 16 μC/cm2 and a high coercive field of 1 MV/cm were observed. Further proof for the ferroelectric nature was collected by quasi-static polarization-voltage hysteresis, small signal capacitance-voltage, and piezoelectric measurements. Data retention characteristics were evaluated by a Positive Up Negative Down pulse technique. No significant decay of the initial polarization state was observed within a measurement range of up to two days.

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Investigation on multilayered chemical vapor deposited Ti/TiN films as the diffusion barriers in Cu and Al metallization J.Detailed analytical transmission electron microscopy investigations were performed on a wellknown diffusion barrier system for very-large-scale integration metallization. It will be demonstrated that interfacial reactions are of great importance for the barrier mechanism. Both Ti and TiN act as diffusion barrier for the semiconductor and the metallization, respectively. For an aluminum-based metallization, TiN has a "spongelike" function due to its ability to absorb several amounts of aluminum at elevated temperatures and therefore inhibits diffusion towards the substrate. Ti acts for silicon as a compound forming barrier according to Nicolet's classification [in