KrF Excimer Laser Annealing With an Ultra-Low Laser Fluence for Enabling Ferroelectric HfZrO

In this letter, we report the KrF excimer laser annealing for achieving high-performance ferroelectric Hf0.5Zr0.5O2(HZO). The laser anneals the target device layer effectively with a high heating/cooling rate without overheating under-layer deep structures. The impact of laser fluence, number of pulses, and pulse duration on the ferroelectricity in HZO was carefully studied through numerical simulation and experiment. The remnant polarization
$2{P}_{\text {r}}$
of
$22~\mu \text{C}$
/cm2, a coercive field of ~1 MV/cm, and a cycling endurance of >
$10^{{8}}$
were achieved in the 8 nm ferroelectric HZO thin film annealed by the laser with an ultra-low laser fluence of ~84 mJ/cm2 and 20 pulses. Benefiting from the large beam size of KrF excimer laser, the laser annealing is practical for obtaining stable wafer-scale ferroelectric HZO within a short time.