Impact of Temperature-Induced Oxide Defects on Hf_xZr_1−xO₂ Ferroelectric Tunnel Junction Memristor Performance

In this work, we evaluate the importance of the postmetallization annealing (PMA) temperature on the performance of HfxZr1−xO2-based ferroelectric tunnel junctions (FTJs). Our results indicate a significant difference in tunneling electroresistance (TER) ratio and endurance, depending on the PMA temperature despite negligible variations in remanent polarization. We conclude that the minimization of conductive oxide defect states is central to achieve high performance. Through carefully optimized PMA conditions, we demonstrate FTJs with a TER = 3 and low mean cycle-to-cycle variation of < 1.5% combined with at least 16 separable conductance states providing a 4-bit resolution analog FTJ.