Hafnia-based ferroelectric materials have enabled ferroelectric memory scaling to sub-20-nm nodes. Yet, the impact of nanopillar structures on ferroelectric switching dynamics remains unclear. In this work, we employ phase-field simulations to study domain evolution during and after switching in nanopillar capacitors. Our results reveal that the nanopillar geometry can cause depolarization behavior. A combination of thick domain walls, small pillar radius, and proper grain orientation should result in significant depolarization, characterized by a large maximum depolarization, a short depolarization time, and strong resistance to nonideal effects. This depolarization behavior is potentially beneficial for applications requiring high-permittivity dielectrics (such as next-generation DRAM), but needs to be suppressed for nonvolatile memory applications. We conclude by discussing the limitations and potential extensions of this work.

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• Electric polarization
• Ferroelectric domains
• Permittivity
• Capacitors
• Ferroelectrics
• Nanostructures
• Transition metal oxides
• Phase-field modeling