Tom Iung, Thomas Cornélius (IM2NP), Lucía Pérez Ramírez, and Eun-Jin Koh recently conducted micro-X-ray diffraction (μ-XRD) experiments at the DIFFABS beamline of the SOLEIL synchrotron (Saint Aubin, France).

The main goal of this beamtime was to monitor in situ the crystallization (see picture) and phase evolution of a metal-ferroelectric (Si:HfO2)-insulator-semiconductor stack, which was fabricated in an industrial cleanroom at STMicroelectronics, Crolles. The annealing process, carried out between 450°C and 1000°C, aimed to assess the stack’s compatibility with both BeOL and FeOL processes. Additionally, the team evaluated potential phase transformations due to electric cycling for patterned stacks annealed at 750°C and 1000°C under industrial FeOL conditions.

This research is funded by the ANRT and the Ferro4EdgeAI (Grant agreement n° 101135656) project. (https://www.ferro4edgeai.eu/) The team expresses their gratitude to the Diffabs beamline scientist Cristian Mocuta for his support.