Examination of the possibility of negative capacitance using ferroelectric materials in solid state electronic devices.

We show here, using fundamental energy storage relationships for capacitors, that there are severe constraints upon what can be realized utilizing ferroelectric materials as FET dielectrics. A basic equation governing all small signal behavior is derived, a negative capacitance quality factor is defined based upon it, and thousands of carefully measured devices are evaluated. We show that no instance of negative capacitance occurs within our huge database. Furthermore, we demonstrate that highly nonlinear biasing behavior in a series stack could be misinterpreted as giving a negative capacitance.