  This paper investigates wake-up and imprint in ferroelectric AlScN films. The
study employs a series of I-V and P-E measurements with varying electric field
amplitudes and voltage cycles as well as structural investigation via Scanning
Electron Microscopy to understand the origin and underlying principle of
wake-up and imprint as well as their relation. It is shown that the material
can be considered wake-up free, however inherent imprint and imprint shift in
combination with minor loops result in a wake-up like effect. We introduce a
proposition to explain the influence of initial switching cycles on domains,
their stabilization and corresponding changes in imprint. Unipolar fields and
temperature investigations are used to explore the reversibility of imprint and
ways to program it, while partial switching is applied to investigate domain
propagation and support the aforementioned approach. It is concluded, that
after an energetically more demanding domain nucleation, domain wall motion can
switch the majority of polarization in Al1-xScxN. As a consequence, the
presence of initial domains reduces the coercive field in respect to unipolar
films.
