Radiation effects on ferroelectric thin-film memories: Retention failure mechanisms

Ferroelectric thin-film (200–350 nm) memories were fabricated and tested. Two materials were used as memory cells: potassium nitrate (KNO3) and lead zirconate titanate (PbZr0.54Ti0.46O3, usually abbreviated as PZT). These devices were tested as arrays deposited either by thermal evaporation (in the case of KNO3) or sputtered films (PZT). Fully packaged devices were tested to determine switching speed and polarization (switched charge) as functions of temperature and applied voltage. Radiation hardness was also tested for both dose rate and total dose. The switching kinetics were investigated in considerable detail and found to confirm the theory of Ishibashi. The dimensionality of domain growth for the switching process in KNO3 lowers from 2.3 before irradiation to 1.6 after 0.5 Mrad. For PZT rad hardness exceeds 5 Mrad total dose and 2×1011 rad/s. A surprising result was that the hysteresis curves for all of the PZT samples became more symmetric after 5 Mrad irradiation; this is interpreted as a destruction of internal biasing fields. All PZT memories continued to function after 5 Mrad, but 2 out of 8 of those stored under short-circuited conditions failed to retain information. An explanation of the retention failure of the short-circuited cells is given in terms of space-charge and well-known electret effects.