The memory retention properties of Pt/YMnO3/Y2O3/Si capacitors were investigated for the application of ferroelectric gate transistors. The epitaxially grown Pt/YMnO3/Y2O3/Si capacitors showed ferroelectric type hysteresis loop on the capacitance-voltage properties. Although the retention time of the as-deposited capacitors was ∼103 s, it was prolonged up to 104 s when the leakage current density was reduced from 4×10−8 A/cm2 to 2×10−9 A/cm2 by the annealing under N2 ambience. To reveal the relationship between the retention time and leakage current, the leakage current mechanism was investigated comparing several conduction mechanisms. It was found that the dominant leakage mechanisms at high and low electric fields were Poole-Frenkel emission from the Y2O3 layer and ohmic conduction, respectively. This result indicates that the leakage current was limited by the Y2O3 layer at high electric field and was mainly dominated by the amount of defects in the YMnO3 layer at low electric field. From the pseudo isothermal capacitance transient spectroscopy (ICTS), it was determined that the trap density was in an order of 1015 cm−3. Since the variation of the leakage current by annealing was observed only in the low electric field region, it is suggested that the retention properties of the Pt/YMnO3/Y2O3/Si capacitors was influenced by the amount of defects in the YMnO3 layer.

The controlled growth of alumina films by atomic layer deposition (ALD) is of great interest to the electronics industry, as high-k dielectrics are being sought for the next-generation of MOSFETS. We present a theoretical study of the alumina polymorph γ-Al2O3 based on density functional theory (DFT). The predicted bulk structure for γ-Al2O3 has the Al vacancy sites widely separated, which is in agreement with other theoretical predictions. We estimated the energy of several γ-Al2O3 surfaces namely: (111), (110) and (110). The atomic and electronic structure of the most stable (111) surface is discussed and compared with α-Al2O3 (0001). The adsorption and dissociation of the H2O onto the (111) surface is considered and H-diffusion is simulated. Finally, a model for the γ-Al2O3 (111)/aluminium-hydroxide interface is proposed and considered as an intermediate stage in the γ-alumina film growth mechanism.

Corona charge deposition methods in combination with spatially resolved surface potential measurements have become a standard tool for Si oxide quality monitoring. Based on this technique oxide-semiconductor interface parameters such as surface barrier height, oxide thickness and oxide charge density can now be monitored in-line with commercially available devices. The ongoing downscaling of integrated circuits into the sub-100 nm regime makes the development of high resolution oxide screening methods increasingly important.

However, currently available commercial devices are limited in their spatial resolution since they employ the traditional vibrating Kelvin probe technique, restricting their lateral resolution to several μm. In order to increase the lateral resolution of this measurement method we have combined the corona-charge deposition technique with Kelvin Probe AFM. We present initial results of this novel measurement technique and demonstrate its feasibility by measurements on lithographically prepared oxide patterns on Si wafers with different oxide thicknesses.

The effect of ion bombardment with Ar+ at the energy E=2.5 keV on HfO2/Si and ZrO2/Si interfaces has been investigated in situ with XPS by growing thin metal oxide layers and further ion etching them. It is shown that a silicide layer ∼2 nm in thickness is forming, and Ar+ ion beam affects MeO2/Si (Me=Hf, Zr) interface at thickness ≤3 nm. Ex situ AFM/STM corroborates the formation of silicide layer at metal oxide/silicon interface.

In this paper, we present results on transmission-energy curves through quantum wells with disordered interfaces. We propose a rule to process experimental data to obtain information about the degree of disorder.

Elementary processes governing the epitaxial growth of metal oxides, like adsorption and diffusion, have been studied theoretically in the prototypical case of MgO/MgO(001). Most of these processes need to be investigated in an ab initio approach since they are usually accompanied by strong modifications of the electronic structure. This study has been carried out within the density functional theory, and complemented by molecular dynamics simulations using a rigid-ion potential. The growth of the oxide passes through several oxido-reduction reactions at the surface. The adsorption and the diffusion of Mg and O are strongly different from each other, and change considerably at steps from flat terraces. All these results point out the need of realistic models for the growth of metal oxides that take into account the chemical behaviour of the involved species as well as the influence of the defects.

The interface passivation process based on post-oxidation, high temperature anneals in nitric oxide (NO) is well established for SiO2 on (0001) 4H-SiC. The NO process results in an order of magnitude or more reduction in the interface state density near the 4H conduction band edge. However, trap densities are still high compared to those measured for Si / SiO2 passivated with post-oxidation anneals in hydrogen. Herein, we report the results of studies for 4H-SiC / SiO2 undertaken to determine the effects of additional passivation anneals in hydrogen when these anneals are carried out following a standard NO anneal. After NO passivation and Pt deposition to form gate contacts, post-metallization anneals in hydrogen further reduced the trap density from approximately 1.5 × 1012 cm−2eV−1 to about 6 × 1011 cm−2eV−1 at a trap energy of 0.1 eV below the band edge for dry thermal oxides on both (0001) and (11–20) 4H-SiC.

We report here on atomic transport, thermal stability, and chemical evolution of HfSiO, HfSiN, and AlON films on Si(001), aiming at investigating the atomic scale behaviour of the involved chemical species, N and H in particular, when the films are submitted to usual thermal processing steps in inert and oxidizing atmospheres. The films were characterized by nuclear reaction analyses in resonant and non-resonant regions of the cross-section curves, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, and low energy ion scattering. The HfSiN/Si structure was shown to be more resistant to oxygen diffusion than HfSiO/Si, although the amounts of O incorporated in HfSiN/Si are larger than in HfSiO/Si. The main channel of oxygen incorporation is atomic exchange with nitrogen or oxygen atoms. HfSiN film on Si incorporate more hydrogen (or deuterium) and in more stable configurations than HfSiO/Si. Nitrogen incorporation into AlON films on Si renders this structure more stable against thermal annealing in vacuum and/or oxidizing atmospheres than Al2O3/Si.

Due to their highly efficient photo-luminescent (PL) characteristics, the physical properties of rare-earth polytantalates, RETa7O19 (RE=Eu and Y) were further studied. AFM, SEM, HRTEM, x-ray reflectometry, spectroscopic ellipsometry and standard dielectric testing were used to determine film thickness, roughness, index of refraction, band-gap, dielectric constant, leakage current and breakdown field for as-deposited (amorphous) and post-annealed (crystalline) films. Structural and morphological properties of the Film/SiO2/Si interfaces were also examined.

We investigate the dielectric screening across the Si-SiO2 interface using a first-principle approach. By determining the profile of the microscopic polarization and the effective polarizabilities of SiOn (n = 0,‥4) structural units, we show that the variation of the local screening across the interface relates to the chemical grading. The oxide region near the Si substrate shows the same dielectric permittivity as bulk SiO2 as long as the oxide is locally stoichiometric. The suboxide region carries an enhanced permittivity, with a value intermediate between those corresponding to bulk Si and SiO2. The implications of these findings for the scalability of the equivalent oxide thickness in high-κ gate stacks are discussed.

The thin film varistors of ZnO-Bi2O3 multilayer junctions were fabricated by RF sputtering. The nonlinear I-V characteristics and nonlinear coefficient, α, under reverse bias were found to be effected by the composition and structure of the varistor multilayers. The threshold voltage is predominantly determined by the microstructure and thickness of the Bi2O3 layer in thin film varistors, while that can be tuned by altering the donor density in ZnO, which was achieved by varying Al doping concentration or sputtering conditions. The higher leakage current and lower nonlinear coefficient associated with the ZnO layer doped with Al (ZnO:Al) can be improved by inserting another ZnO layer doped with selective transition metal impurities between ZnO:Al and Bi2O3 layers. The microstructure and defects of the multilayers were investigated in detail and related to the performance of the electrical properties.

For the high density FeRAM applications, the integration process-induces damages such as etching damage that degrades the properties of FRAM devices and the high surface roughness of ferroelectric thin film that results in the difficulty for alignment are critical issues. In order to solve these problems, selective deposition process is developed to simplify the integration processes and improve the properties of FeRAM memory devices. Based on the differential deposition rates of ferroelectric materials on high-k oxide and silicon dioxide, we can selectively deposit a c-axis oriented PGO thin film on the patterned high-k oxide such as ZrOx (x=0–2), HfOx (x=0–2), TiO2, and their mixtures other than on SiO2. By patterning the high-k dielectric, the PGO deposition is limited to just the preferred pattern high-k area. SEM, EDX and x-ray measurements further confirm that the c-axis oriented PGO thin films are selectively deposited on the high-k gate oxide other than on the field SiO2 including alignment mark area, which will eliminate the roughness problem for the alignments. Also the etching damage is eliminated since there is no need to etch the PGO film, which improved the properties of FeRAM devices.

The crystallinity and wet etching behaviors of ultrathin (<10 nm) HfO2 films grown by metal organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) were examined as a function of deposition temperature, film thickness, and post-deposition annealing. Films 3 nm in thickness deposited at 400 or 500 °C were amorphous as-deposited and slowly etchable in aqueous HF; after annealing at 700 °C, the same films showed some nanocrystallinity and were impervious to HF. However, thicker films grown under the same conditions showed significant crystallinity and were impervious to HF even as-deposited. These observations, in combination with measurements on various samples etched back by an Ar+ ion damage/wet etch process, suggest a film structure comprising an initially amorphous near-interface region capped with a HF-resistant crystalline upper layer. It was found that the initially amorphous near-interface region (the bottom 1–3 nm) of films grown at 500 °C can be induced to at least partially crystallize as the upper part of the film starts becoming crystalline as-deposited, but that this near-interface region remains at least partially amorphous after annealing at 700°C.

The main challenges involved in the growth of an epitaxial oxide film with a crystalline interface to silicon are reviewed: (1) structural matching of the oxide and semiconductor lattices; (2) thermodynamic energy stabilization at the semiconductor–oxide interface, and (3) kinetic control over oxygen motion throughout the deposition process. We report on how this approach can be used to grow epitaxial perovskites of high structural quality from the (Ba, Sr)(Zr,Ti)O3 family with crystalline interfaces on Si (100) by molecular-beam epitaxy.

Characterization of thin surficial films of oxides has become the focus of increased interest due to their applications in microelectronics. The ability to experimentally determine the electronic structure and optical properties of oxide materials permits the direct study of the interband transitions from the valence to the conduction band states. In the past years there has been much progress in the quantitative analysis of transmission electron energy loss spectroscopy (TEELS) in the electron microscope

Here we employed reflection electron energy loss function (REELS) as well as vacuum ultraviolet (VUV) spectroscopy to determine the dielectric functions of oxide materials, i.e. Al2O3, ZrO2 and SrTiO3. The two main steps in the analysis are the removal of the effects of multiple scattering from the REELS spectra followed by application of the Kramers-Kronig dispersion transforms to the single scattering energy loss function to determine the conjugate optical variable and then the complex dielectric function. The surface and bulk plasma resonance spectra for these oxide materials have been determined from VUV and REELS, along with the influence of primary electron energy on the REELS results. The relative contribution of surface and bulk plasmon oscillation in REELS has been investigated. Comparison with VUV results and existing TEELS results indicate that Kramers-Kronig analysis can also be applied to REELS spectra and the corresponding conjugate optical properties can be obtained. Quantitative studies of the electronic structure and optical properties of thin surficial films using VUV and REELS or TEELS, represent a new avenue to determine the properties of these increasingly important films.

To meet requirements of CMOS circuits at sub 45nm scale, gate oxide thickness shall decrease. Thus high K materials are needed as dielectric gate. In this setting, due to gate depletion effect, metallic material should be used as an alternative to poly silicon gate. Moreover, specifications on threshold voltage require modulation of gate material work function with respect to nMOS or pMOS transistor. WSix work function is known to be sensitive to material stoichiometry. In this work, WSix thin films with x between 2.2 and 2.5 are evaluated as metal gate on HfO2 and SiO2 dielectric. Film chemical characteristics are correlated with work function measurements.

Thin films are deposited using WF6 and dichlorosilane on a 200mm wafer industrial chamber. Thermal treatments are applied to sample in order to recrystallise the film and confirm it stability. MOS Capacitors are processed. Electrical characterizations (capacitance vs voltage) are used to extract work function with respect to film composition.

Films are chemically and morphologically stable up to 800°C. A W/Si ratio gradient is observed between surface and dielectric/film interface. Whatever the nominal stoichiometry, Si/W ratio is constant at this interface. This result is correlated with identical work function measurement for different nominal stoichiometry. Moreover no differences are observed between Vfb vs equivalent oxide thickness curves for HfO2 and SiO2 dielectric. High EOT variations have been identified for SiO2 capacitors in contrast with SiO2/HfO2 capacitors. These results characterize WSix as a suitable metal gate for nMOS transistors.

The study of the effects of substrate surface preparation of GaN, both in-situ and ex-situ and the subsequent deposition of dielectric materials is necessary to create a viable GaN FET technology. Surface preparation techniques have been explored using RHEED, AES, SIMS and C-V measurements to produce films of low interface trap density, 1–2E11 eV−1cm−2. A similar study of the as-fabricated HEMT surface was carried out to create a cleaning procedure prior to dielectric passivation. Dielectric films of Sc2O3 and MgO were deposited via gas-source MBE. Post-deposition materials characterization included AES, TEM, XRR and XPS, as well as gate pulse and isolation current measurements for the passivated HEMT devices. From this study, the relationship between the interface structure and chemistry and the quality of the oxide/nitride electrical interface has been determined. The resulting process has led to the near elimination of the current collapse phenomenon. In addition, the resulting oxide/nitride interface quality has allowed for the first demonstration of inversion in GaN.

Amorphous lanthanum aluminate films (LaAlO3) were deposited on Si substrates at room temperature using rf sputtering in pure Ar or an Ar/O2 mixture with a stoichiometric target. The film composition was analyzed using XPS and EDX. The evolution of the material resulting from annealing at temperatures in excess of 900 °C was studied using infrared spectroscopy, XPS profiling and AFM. We obtain clear evidence for in-diffusion of Si from the substrate into the dielectric film. FTIR analysis showed only one peak centered at 747 cm−1 with an FWHM of 185 cm−1 for as-deposited samples indicating an amorphous structure. Annealed samples showed very narrow absorptions at 483–510, 607, 695–720 and 811 cm−1. No evidence for SiO2 peaks at ∼1060 cm−1 was observed suggesting that the LaAlO3 structure tends not to reduce into a mixture of SiO2 and a silicide. Short time annealing at 1000 °C results in a broad band at 905 cm−1 which can be interpreted in terms of the formation of a layer rich in Si-O-La bonds. Nitridation of the substrate before oxide deposition and annealing slows the degradation process but does not suppress it. X-ray diffraction analysis of the annealed films indicates a very oriented crystalline structure, yet unidentified, whose direction depends upon the orientation of the Si substrate. The dielectric constant in both annealed and as-deposited films was measured to be less than 14 and the leakage current density was very low. Some mobile charge was detected. This dielectric constant is substantially less than the value ∼ 25 anticipated from bulk, single crystal measurements.

Electron spin resonance (ESR) analysis of (100)Si/SiOx/ZrO2, (100)Si/Al2O3 and Si/HfO2 structures with nm-thin dielectric layers deposited by different chemical vapor deposition procedures reveals, after hydrogen detachment, the presence of the trivalent Si dangling-bond-type centers Pb0, Pb1 as prominent defects in all entities. This Pb0, Pb1 fingerprint, generally unique for the thermal (100)Si/SiO2 interface, indicates that the as-deposited (100)Si/metal oxides interface is basically Si/SiO2-like. Though sensitive to the deposition process, the Pb0 density is found to be substantially larger than in standard (100)Si/SiO2. As probed by the Pb- type center properties, the Si/dielectric interfaces of all structures are under enhanced (unrelaxed) stress, typical for low temperature Si/SiO2 growth. Standard quality thermal Si/SiO2 properties in terms of Pb signature may be approached by appropriate annealing (≥ 650°C) in vacuum in the case of (100)Si/SiOx/ZrO2. Yet, O2 ambient appears required for Si/Al2O3 and Si/HfO2. It appears that Si/high-κ metal oxide structures with device grade quality interfaces can be realized with sub-nm thin SiOx interlayers. The density of fast interface states closely matches the Pb0 density variations, suggesting the center as the dominant fast interface trap. They may be efficiently passivated in H2 at 400 °C.

The structural characteristics of a silica layer and Si/SiO2 interface formed on Si single-crystal by oxidation in hyperthermal atomic oxygen (AO) and molecular oxygen (MO) at 493K were compared by wide variety of experimental techniques. The hyperthermal AO with kinetic energy of 5.1eV was created by the pulsed laser detonation of oxygen gas. The oxide formed by AO and MO on Si single crystal is amorphous as observed by HRTEM and selected area electron diffraction (SAED). However, the oxide formed by AO has a less random distribution of silicon and oxygen atoms as compared to the oxide formed by MO, as evidenced by the SAED patterns and EELS spectra. In contrast to MO formed silica, initial EELS results across the Si/SiO2 interface revealed no region of suboxides exists near the interface in the AO formed silica. The Si/SiO2 interface formed by AO species was found to be very abrupt and the oxide homogeneous, as opposed to the broad interface and non-homogeneous oxide created by MO, as determined by HRTEM and EELS.