Analysis and Compensation of the Series Resistance Effects on the Characteristics of Ferroelectric Capacitors

The energy efficiency of ferroelectric-based devices makes them interesting for many applications. However, their optimization requires a dependable characterization of the ferroelectric (FE) material. In this work, we show and investigate how the series resistance (R S ) can strongly impact the current-voltage (I-V) characteristics of Metal-Ferroelectric-Metal (MFM) stacks and distorts the hysteresis curves, which can lead to an inaccurate extraction of the FE parameters and a misleading interpretation of FE switching dynamics. The complex R S effect on the I-V curves cannot be easily compensated, so here we propose, for the first time to our knowledge, a procedure for an improved extraction of the FE parameters even in the presence of a non-negligible series resistance.