Strongly temperature dependent ferroelectric switching in AlN, Al_1-xSc_xN, and Al_1-xB_xN thin films

This manuscript reports the temperature dependence of ferroelectric switching in Al0.84Sc0.16N, Al0.93B0.07N, and AlN thin films. Polarization reversal is demonstrated all compositions strongly dependent. Between room 300 °C, coercive field drops by almost 50% samples, while there was very small remanent polarization value. Over this same range, relative permittivity increased between 5% 10%. confirmed piezoelectric coefficient analysis chemical etching. Applying intrinsic/homogeneous models produces nonphysical fits, based on thermal activation suggest that regulated a distribution pinning sites or nucleation barriers with an average energy near 28 meV.