Review of My Research Work on Ferroelectric Films and Si-Based Device Applications: Opportunity and Challenge

Ferroelectric materials have many interesting physical properties such as ferroelectricity, pyroelectricity, piezoelectricity, and opto-electricity, and applying ferroelectric materials in the forms of thin and thick films and integrating them on the silicon substrate as electronic and MEMS devices is a very attractive research area and challenging. In this paper, we report our research works on ferroelectric MEMS and ferroelectric films for electronic device applications. Pyroelectric thin film infrared sensors have been made, characterized, and a 32×32 array with its size of 1cm×1cm has been obtained on Si membrane. Ferroelectric thin films in amorphous phase have been applied to make silicon based hydrogen gas sensors with the metal/amorphous ferroelectric film/metal device structure, and its turn-on voltage of about 4.5V at ～1000 ppm in air is about 7 times of the best value reported in the literature. For the application of electron emission flat panel display, ferroelectric BST thin films with excess Ti concentrations have been coated on Si tips, the threshold voltage of those ferroelectric film coated tips has been reduced about one order from ～70 V/μm to 4～10 V/μm for different Ti concentrations, and however, the electron emission current density has been increased at least 3～4 order for those coated tips compared to that of the bare Si tips. To fulfill in the thickness gap between thin film of typical ～1 μm made by PVD/CVD and polished ceramic wafer of ～50 μm from the bulk, piezoelectric films with thickness in a range of 1～30 μm have been successfully deposited on Si substrate at a low temperature of 650oC by a novel hybridized deposition technique, and piezoelectric MEMS ultrasonic arrays have been very recently obtained with the sound pressure level up to ～120 dB. More detailed results will be presented and mechanisms will be discussed.

Crystallization Process of Superlattice-Like Sb/SiO_2 Thin Films for Phase Change Memory Application

After compositing with SiO_2 layers, it is shown that superlattice-like Sb/SiO_2 thin films have higher crystallization temperature（~240°C）, larger crystallization activation energy（6.22 e V）, and better data retention ability（189°C for 10 y）. The crystallization of Sb in superlattice-like Sb/SiO_2 thin films is restrained by the multilayer interfaces. The reversible resistance transition can be achieved by an electric pulse as short as 8 ns for the Sb（3 nm）/SiO_2（7 nm）-based phase change memory cell. A lower operation power consumption of 0.09 m W and a good endurance of 3.0 × 10~6 cycles are achieved. In addition, the superlattice-like Sb（3 nm）/SiO_2（7 nm） thin film shows a low thermal conductivity of 0.13 W/（m·K）.

TRANSPARENT AND CONDUCTIVE OXIDE FILM GROWTH AND APPLICATION

Thin layer polycrystal oxides (amorphous and micro-crystalline) TiO2(Fe2O3, SnO2 and ln2O3 · Sn) are prepared by the organometallic chemical vapor deposition (MO-CVD) technique at 300-410℃ . Their structures, surface states and photoelectrochemical properties are described by X-ray diffraction (XRD), electron microscopy and three electrode methods. The experiments indicate that these thin layer oxides are suitable for formly transparent conductive coating to serve as photoelectrodes and photocatalysts for splitting of water.

Composite structure of ZnO films coated with reduced graphene oxide: structural,electrical and electrochemical properties

ZnO films coated with reduced graphene oxide（RGO-ZnO） were prepared by a simple chemical approach. The graphene oxide（GO） films transferred onto ZnO films by spin coating were reduced to RGO films by two steps（exposed to hydrazine vapor for 12 h and annealed at 600 °C）. The crystal structures, electrical and photoluminescence properties of RGO-ZnO films on quartz substrates were systematically studied. The SEM images illustrated that RGO layers have successfully been coated on the ZnO films very tightly. The PL properties of RGO-ZnO were studied. PL spectra show two sharp peaks at 390 nm and a broad visible emission around 490 nm.The resistivity of RGO-ZnO films was measured by a Hall measurement system, RGO as nanofiller considerably decrease the resistivity of ZnO films. An electrode was fabricated, using RGO-ZnO films deposited on Si substrate as active materials, for super capacitor application. By comparison of different results, we conclude that the RGOZnO composite material couples possess the properties of super capacitor.