Journal of Sol-Gel Science and Technology 16, 57–63 (1999) c  1999 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Manufactured in The Netherlands. Ferroelectric Properties of New Chemical Solution Derived SBT Thin Films for Non-Volatile Memory Devices SEUNG-HYUN KIM ∗ AND D.J. KIM Department of Materials Science and Engineering, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC 27695, USA seunghyun kim@ncsu.edu J. IM Materials Science and Chemistry Divisions, Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, IL 60439, USA C.E. KIM Department of Ceramic Engineering, YonSei University, 134 Shinchon-Dong, Seoul, 120-749, Korea ANGUS I. KINGON Department of Materials Science and Engineering, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC 27695, USA Received August 25, 1998; Accepted November 23, 1998 Abstract. Ferroelectric SBT (Sr/Bi/Ta = 0.8/2.3/2) thin films on Pt/ZrO 2 /SiO 2 /Si were successfully prepared by using an alkanolamine modified chemical solution deposition method. Acetic acid as a solvent led to the formation of water in the solution, which might continuously induce the hydrolysis and condensation of the precursors, leading to reducing the stability of the solution with aging time. It was observed that alkanolamine provided the stability to the SBT solution by retarding the hydrolysis and condensation rates. This solution could be used as long as up to 30 days without any appreciable change of the solution properties. The typical hysteresis loop of SBT thin films was obtained at 2 V, and it was fully saturated even below an applied voltage of 3 V (2 P r ≈ 16 μC/cm 2 ). The measured 2 P r value of the SBT thin film at 5 V was almost 20 μC/cm 2 . Fatigue and breakdown characteristics of the films, measured at 5 V, showed a stable behavior, and negligible degradation was observed up to 10 10 cycles. Keywords: ferroelectricity, chemical solution, alkanolamine, SBT, imprint, fatigue 1. Introduction In recent years, ferroelectric thin films have been ex- tensively investigated for non-volatile memory applica- tions [1–3]. The most important degradation phenom- ena for ferroelectric devices are polarization fatigue, imprint and resistance degradation. Prime among these degradations may be ferroelectric fatigue behavior. So far, PZT materials have been considered to be the most ∗ To whom all correspondence should be addressed. promising candidate for memory applications [4–6]. However, PZT thin films have been limited since they undergo severe polarization fatigue with metal elec- trodes [6, 7]. Recently, SrBi 2 Ta 2 O 9 (SBT) thin films have attracted a great interest for non-volatile memory applications due to their minimal polarization fatigue and low voltage operation [8, 9]. Among various preparation techniques for SBT thin films, chemical solution deposition (CSD) is one of the promising techniques because it provides high purity, large deposition area, and easy composition control