A robust high-performance electronic synapse based on epitaxial ferroelectric Hf0.5Zr0.5O2 films with uniform polarization and high Curie temperature

•Ferroelectric tunnel junction (FTJ) device based on epitaxial Hf0.5Zr0.5O2 (HZO) films was fabricated, allowing excellent electronic synaptic behaviors and high accuracy of 93.7% for MNIST database recognition.•The high-performance of the device has been in-depth understood and correlated to the uniform polarization and high remnant polarization (25 µC/cm2) of HZO films.•The Curie temperature of 930 °C of HZO films was reported while the strain relaxation-related phase transition and the conduction mechanism of the FTJ have also been thoroughly clarified.