Three Million Years Opposite State Data Retention in Partially Switched Wurtzite Ferroelectrics
Abstract
Ferroelectric memories based on the wurtzite-structured ferroelectrics are projected to store information for more than 3 million years at 150C. These results are extracted by combining standard domain wall motion limited switching kinetics with the near-by-electrode injection model for opposite state retention in ferroelectric random access memory. This impressive performance is greatly aided by switching only a fraction of the total polarization to store data, in order to limit the initial imprint variation of the devices - an effect that is universally observed in films with different thicknesses (60 nm - 270 nm) and different compounds (AlScN and AlScBN). Paradoxically, yet systematically, this reduction in initial imprint consistently results in larger switching polarization after a given time, compared to the fully switching state and 5-7 orders of magnitude improved opposite state retention. Finally, partial switching is able to simultaneously boost endurance against premature polarization loss and breakdown, making it a promising strategy for improved operation of ferroelectric devices with large spontaneous polarization, in particularly wurtzite-structured compounds.
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BibTeX
@misc{gremmel2026three,
title = {{Three Million Years Opposite State Data Retention in Partially Switched Wurtzite Ferroelectrics}},
author = {Maike Gremmel and Roberto Guido and Victor Witte and Thomas Mikolajick and Uwe Schröder and Simon Fichtner},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2607.16665},
eprint = {2607.16665},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2607.16665},
note = {CC BY-NC-ND 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Three Million Years Opposite State Data Retention in Partially Switched Wurtzite Ferroelectrics
AU - Maike Gremmel
AU - Roberto Guido
AU - Victor Witte
AU - Thomas Mikolajick
AU - Uwe Schröder
AU - Simon Fichtner
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/08
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2607.16665
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2607.16665
AB - Ferroelectric memories based on the wurtzite-structured ferroelectrics are projected to store information for more than 3 million years at 150C. These results are extracted by combining standard domain wall motion limited switching kinetics with the near-by-electrode injection model for opposite state retention in ferroelectric random access memory. This impressive performance is greatly aided by switching only a fraction of the total polarization to store data, in order to limit the initial imprint variation of the devices - an effect that is universally observed in films with different thicknesses (60 nm - 270 nm) and different compounds (AlScN and AlScBN). Paradoxically, yet systematically, this reduction in initial imprint consistently results in larger switching polarization after a given time, compared to the fully switching state and 5-7 orders of magnitude improved opposite state retention. Finally, partial switching is able to simultaneously boost endurance against premature polarization loss and breakdown, making it a promising strategy for improved operation of ferroelectric devices with large spontaneous polarization, in particularly wurtzite-structured compounds.
ER -