Ferroelectric capacitor is a
capacitor
A capacitor is a device that stores electrical energy in an electric field by virtue of accumulating electric charges on two close surfaces insulated from each other. It is a passive electronic component with two terminals.
The effect of ...
based on a
ferroelectric
Ferroelectricity is a characteristic of certain materials that have a spontaneous electric polarization that can be reversed by the application of an external electric field. All ferroelectrics are also piezoelectric and pyroelectric, with the add ...
material. In contrast, traditional capacitors are based on dielectric materials. Ferroelectric devices are used in digital electronics as part of
ferroelectric RAM
Ferroelectric RAM (FeRAM, F-RAM or FRAM) is a random-access memory similar in construction to DRAM but using a ferroelectric layer instead of a dielectric layer to achieve non-volatility. FeRAM is one of a growing number of alternative non-vol ...
, or in analog electronics as tunable capacitors (varactors).
In memory applications, the stored value of a ferroelectric capacitor is read by applying an
electric field
An electric field (sometimes E-field) is the physical field that surrounds electrically charged particles and exerts force on all other charged particles in the field, either attracting or repelling them. It also refers to the physical field fo ...
. The amount of
charge
Charge or charged may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Films
* '' Charge, Zero Emissions/Maximum Speed'', a 2011 documentary
Music
* ''Charge'' (David Ford album)
* ''Charge'' (Machel Montano album)
* ''Charge!!'', an album by The Aqu ...
needed to flip the memory cell to the opposite state is measured and the previous state of the cell is revealed. This means that the read operation destroys the memory cell state, and has to be followed by a corresponding write operation, in order to write the bit back. This makes it similar to (now obsolete)
ferrite core memory. The requirement of a write cycle for each read cycle, together with the high but not infinite write cycle limit is a potential problem for some special applications.
Theory
In a short-circuited ferroelectric capacitor with a metal-ferroelectric-metal (MFM) structure, a charge distribution of screening charges forms at the metal-ferroelectric interface so as to screen the electric displacement of the ferroelectric. Due to these screening charges, there is a voltage drop across the ferroelectric capacitor with screening in the electrode layer that can be obtained using the Thomas-Fermi approach as follows:
Here
is the film thickness,
and
are the electric fields in the film and electrode at the interface,
is the spontaneous polarization,
, and
&
are the dielectric constants of the film and the metal electrode.
With perfect electrodes,
or for thick films, with
the equation reduces to:
See also
*
Ferroelectricity
Ferroelectricity is a characteristic of certain materials that have a spontaneous electric polarization that can be reversed by the application of an external electric field. All ferroelectrics are also piezoelectric and pyroelectric, with the add ...
*
Ferroelectric RAM
Ferroelectric RAM (FeRAM, F-RAM or FRAM) is a random-access memory similar in construction to DRAM but using a ferroelectric layer instead of a dielectric layer to achieve non-volatility. FeRAM is one of a growing number of alternative non-vol ...
External links
FeRAM Tutorial
References
Capacitors
Ferroelectric materials
ja:FeRAM