Temperature dependent fatigue in ferroelectric PZT thin films

The rate of electrical fatigue at different temperatures was measured for lead zirconate titanate capacitors with the composition Pb(Zr/sub .60/Ti/sub .40/)O/sub 3/. Results showed that a temperature rise contributes to an increasing rate of logarithmic decay in the fatigue profile. We distinguish two thermally dependent stages during fatigue; each plotted as separate Arrhenius relationships. The first stage has an experimentally measured activation energy of 0.22 eV while the second stage has a measured value of 0.042 eV. The physical basis for these activation energies has not been identified due to the complexity of interactions occurring during the switching reversals. Even so, the measured values give some indication of the types of defects and the mechanisms responsible in each stage.