A flexible Hf_0.5Zr_0.5O₂ thin film with highly robust ferroelectricity

Flexible hafnia-based ferroelectric memories are arousing much interest with the ever-growing demands for nonvolatile data storage in wearable electronic devices. Here, high-quality flexible Hf0.5Zr0.5O2 membranes with robust ferroelectricity were fabricated on inorganic pliable mica substrates via an atomic layer deposition technique. The flexible Hf0.5Zr0.5O2 thin membranes with a thickness of similar to 8 nm exhibit a high remanent polarization of similar to 16 mu C/cm(2), which possess very robust polarization switching endurance (>10(10) cycles, two orders of magnitude better than reported flexible HfO2-based films) and superior retention ability (expected >10 years). In particular, stable ferroelectric polarization as well as excellent endurance and retention performance show negligible degradations under 6 mm radius bending conditions or after 10(4) bending cycles with a 6 mm bending radius. These results mark a crucial step in the development of flexible hafnium oxide-based ferroelectric memories for wearable electronic devices. (c) 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of The Chinese Ceramic Society. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).