Jack C. Lee

Thermal stability and electrical characteristics of ultrathin hafnium oxide gate dielectric reoxidized with rapid thermal annealing

Dielectric properties of ultrathin hafnium oxide reoxidized with rapid thermal annealing (RTA) have been investigated. Capacitance equivalent oxide thickness (CET) of 45 A hafnium oxide was scaled down to ∼10 A with a leakage current less than 3×10−2 A/cm2 at −1.5 V (i.e., ∼2 V below VFB). Leakage current increase due to crystallization was not observed even after 900 °C rapid thermal annealing (RTA), but CET did increase after high temperature RTA due to the interfacial layer growth and possible silicate formation in the HfO2 film.

Modeling and characterization of gate oxide reliability

A technique of predicting the lifetime of an oxide to different voltages, different oxide areas, and different temperatures is presented. Using the defect density model in which defects are modeled as effective oxide thinning, many reliability parameters such as yield, failure rate, and screen time/screen yield can be predicted. This modeling procedure is applicable to both wafer-level and long-term reliability tests. Process improvements including defect gettering and alternative dielectrics such as chemical-vapor-deposited oxides are evaluated in the format of defect density as a function of effective oxide thinning. >

Electrical characteristics of highly reliable ultrathin hafnium oxide gate dielectric

Electrical and reliability properties of ultrathin HfO/sub 2/ have been investigated. Pt electroded MOS capacitors with HfO/sub 2/ gate dielectric (physical thickness /spl sim/45-135 /spl Aring/ and equivalent oxide thickness /spl sim/13.5-25 /spl Aring/) were fabricated. HfO/sub 2/ was deposited using reactive sputtering of a Hf target with O/sub 2/ modulation technique. The leakage current of the 45 /spl Aring/ HfO/sub 2/ sample was about 1/spl times/10/sup -4/ A/cm/sup 2/ at +1.0 V with a breakdown field /spl sim/8.5 MV/cm. Hysteresis was <100 mV after 500/spl deg/C annealing in N/sub 2/ ambient and there was no significant frequency dispersion of capacitance (<1%/dec.). It was also found that HfO/sub 2/ exhibits negligible charge trapping and excellent TDDB characteristics with more than ten years lifetime even at V/sub DD/=2.0 V.

Electrical characteristics of ultrathin oxynitride gate dielectric prepared by rapid thermal oxidation of Si in N2O

This letter presents a unique process to grow high quality ultrathin (∼60 A) gate dielectrics using N2O (nitrous oxide) gas. Compared with conventional rapid thermally grown oxide in the O2, the new oxynitride dielectrics show very large charge‐to‐breakdown (at +50 mA/cm2, 850 C/cm2 for oxynitride compared to 95 C/cm2 for the control thermal oxide) and less charge trapping under constant current stress. Significantly reduced interface state generation was also observed under constant current stress and x‐ray radiation. A secondary‐ion mass spectroscopy depth profile indicates a nitrogen‐rich layer at the Si/SiO2 interface, which can explain the improved integrity of oxynitride dielectric.

Bonding states and electrical properties of ultrathin HfOxNy gate dielectrics

Hafnium oxynitride (HfOxNy) gate dielectric was prepared using reactive sputtering followed by postdeposition annealing at 650 °C in a N2 ambient. Nitrogen incorporation in the dielectric was confirmed by x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy analysis. In comparison to HfO2 of the same physical thickness, HfOxNy gate dielectric showed lower equivalent oxide thickness (EOT) and lower leakage density (J). Even after a high-temperature postmetal anneal at 950 °C, an EOT of 9.6 A with J of 0.8 mA/cm2 @−1.5 V was obtained. In contrast, J of ∼20 mA/cm2 @−1.5 V for HfO2 with an EOT of 10 A was observed. The lower leakage current and superior thermal stability of HfOxNy can be attributed to the formation of silicon–nitrogen bonds at the gate dielectric/Si interface and strengthened immunity to oxygen diffusion by the incorporated nitrogen.

Electrical and reliability characteristics of ZrO2 deposited directly on Si for gate dielectric application

ZrO2 thin film has been studied as an alternative gate dielectric. It was deposited directly on a Si substrate by reactive sputtering. An equivalent oxide thickness of less than 11 A with a leakage current of 1.9×10−3 A/cm2 at −1.5 V relative to the flat band voltage has been obtained. Well-behaved capacitance–voltage characteristics with an interface state density of less than 1011 cm−2 eV−1 and no significant frequency dispersion have been achieved. Excellent reliability properties (e.g., low charge trapping rate, good time-dependent dielectric breakdown, low stress-induced leakage current, and high dielectric breakdown) have also been obtained.

A silicon-based photocathode for water reduction with an epitaxial SrTiO3 protection layer and a nanostructured catalyst

The rapidly increasing global demand for energy combined with the environmental impact of fossil fuels has spurred the search for alternative sources of clean energy. One promising approach is to convert solar energy into hydrogen fuel using photoelectrochemical cells. However, the semiconducting photoelectrodes used in these cells typically have low efficiencies and/or stabilities. Here we show that a silicon-based photocathode with a capping epitaxial oxide layer can provide efficient and stable hydrogen production from water. In particular, a thin epitaxial layer of strontium titanate (SrTiO3) was grown directly on Si(001) by molecular beam epitaxy. Photogenerated electrons can be transported easily through this layer because of the conduction-band alignment and lattice match between single-crystalline SrTiO3 and silicon. The approach was used to create a metal-insulator-semiconductor photocathode that, under a broad-spectrum illumination at 100 mW cm(-2), exhibits a maximum photocurrent density of 35 mA cm(-2) and an open circuit potential of 450 mV; there was no observable decrease in performance after 35 hours of operation in 0.5 M H2SO4. The performance of the photocathode was also found to be highly dependent on the size and spacing of the structured metal catalyst. Therefore, mesh-like Ti/Pt nanostructured catalysts were created using a nanosphere lithography lift-off process and an applied-bias photon-to-current efficiency of 4.9% was achieved.

EFFECTS OF INTERFACIAL LAYER GROWTH ON THE ELECTRICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THIN TITANIUM OXIDE FILMS ON SILICON

Effects of interfacial layer growth on reactively sputter-deposited TiO2 films were studied. Leakage current was reduced to 10−8 A/cm2 at +1 V after annealing in oxygen ambient and showed tunneling-like temperature dependence. As the interfacial layer grew, interface states and hysteresis were improved significantly. However, the reliability was degraded as the annealing temperature increased.

Spectroscopic ellipsometry characterization of high-k dielectric HfO2 thin films and the high-temperature annealing effects on their optical properties

The optical properties of a set of high-k dielectric HfO2 films annealed at various high temperatures were determined by spectroscopic ellipsometry. The results show that the characteristics of the dielectric functions of these films are strongly affected by high temperature annealing. For a sample annealed at 600 °C, the film becomes polycrystalline, and its dielectric function displays a distinctive peak at 5.9 eV. On the other hand, the film remains amorphous without the 5.9 eV feature after 500 °C annealing. To model the dielectric functions, the Tauc–Lorentz dispersion was successfully adopted for these amorphous and polycrystalline films. The absorption edge was observed to shift to a higher energy at a high temperature annealing. Defects in the films were shown to relate to the appearance of a band tail above the absorption edge, and they appear to diminish with high temperature annealing.

Temperature acceleration of time-dependent dielectric breakdown

A model is proposed for predicting the temperature dependence of time-to-breakdown t/sub BD/ in MOS circuits. While a previous study proposed a field-dependent activation energy, this model predicts that the activation energy for t/sub BD/ is dependent on both the oxide quality and the applied field. This explains the wide range of activation energies reported in the literature. The modeling of the activation energy and temperature acceleration factor as a function of t/sub BD/ is introduced in order to compare test results from different oxide technologies. The activation energy is found to increase with the breakdown time. This model provides good estimates of oxide lifetime for voltages down to 5 V and for temperatures between 25 and 150 degrees C. On the basis of the proposed model, an oxide with a lifetime of 1000 years at 25 degrees C is expected to last 47 years at 75 degrees C and 4.8 years at 125 degrees C. >