Doping of Aluminum Nitride and the Impact on Thin Film Piezoelectric and Ferroelectric Device Performance

Recently, the substitutional doping of scandium (Sc) for aluminum (Al) to form aluminum scandium nitride (AlScN) has been studied to enhance the piezoelectric properties and introduce ferroelectric properties into aluminum nitride (AlN) based material systems. The properties achieved to date have profound implications for the performance of piezoelectric filters, and energy harvesters, and for scaling the bit density of ferroelectric memories. This paper reviews the piezoelectric and ferroelectric performance that has been demonstrated, and the impact of the material properties on the performance of piezoelectric and ferroelectric devices.