Enhanced Endurance and Tunnel Electro-Resistance Ratio for Ferroelectric Tunnel Junctions by Band Engineering

In this paper, we propose a high endurance (>1011) and large tunnel electro-resistance (TER) ratio ferroelectric tunnel junction (FTJ) device by inserting an IGZO layer. This method increases the breakdown voltage (Vbd), which enhances FTJ endurance. It can also effectively modulate the interfacial barrier, which contributes to enhancing the tunnelling resistance effect. Therefore, the proposed FTJ exhibits excellent performances, such as low coercive voltage (Vc =0.62 V), small Vc/Vbd ratio (15.3%), high endurance (>1011), large TER ratio (16.7), and high double remanent polarization (2Pr = 37.5 μC/cm2), which are the frontier of the reported HfO₂-based FTJ. The results strongly indicate that the FTJ has great potential in addressing the frequent weight changes generated during long-term training and learning in neuromorphic computation.