Endurance beyond 10 billion cycles in wurtzite ferroelectrics by confining nitrogen vacancies

Wurtzite ferroelectrics could provide a route to wafer-scale integrated ferroelectric memories but are limited by endurance, typically failing at ~10⁸ cycles. We identified nitrogen-vacancy (V_N) clustering and long-range percolative migration as the defect-mediated pathways that drive leakage-current growth and dielectric breakdown. We combined a spatially engineered aluminum scandium nitride/aluminum nitride (AlScN/AlN) superlattice with a dynamic recovery protocol to spatially and energetically confine V_N evolution that stabilized defect topology under cyclic electrical stress and suppressed hard breakdown and ferroelectric degradation. We demonstrated endurance beyond 10¹⁰ cycles in wurtzite ferroelectrics under a complete-switching criterion (remnant polarization ≥ 100 microcoulombs per square centimeter). These findings establish V_N confinement as a scalable defect-topology framework that couples atomic-scale defect stability to reliable ultradense ferroelectric memories and provide guidance for next-generation nonvolatile memory technologies.