Effect of Oxidation Temperature on Physical and Electrical Properties of Sm2O3 Thin-Film Gate Oxide on Si Substrate

Abstract

Thermal oxidation of 150-nm sputtered pure samarium metal film on silicon substrate has been carried out in oxygen ambient at various temperatures (600°C to 900°C) for 15 min and the effect of the oxidation temperature on the structural, chemical, and electrical properties of the resulting Sm 2 O 3 layers investigated. The crystallinity of the Sm 2 O 3 films and the existence of an interfacial layer were evaluated by x-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis, Fouriertransform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, and Raman analysis. The crystallite size and microstrain of Sm 2 O 3 were estimated by Williamson-Hall (W-H) plot analysis, with comparison of the former with the crystallite size of Sm 2 O 3 as calculated using the Scherrer equation. High-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) with energy-dispersive x-ray (EDX) spectroscopy analysis was carried out to investigate the cross-sectional morphology and chemical distribution of selected regions. The activation energy or growth rate of each stacked layer was calculated from Arrhenius plots. The surface roughness and topography of the Sm 2 O 3 layers were examined by atomic force microscopy (AFM) analysis. A physical model based on semipolycrystalline nature of the interfacial layer is suggested and explained. Results supporting such a model were obtained by FTIR, XRD, Raman, EDX, and HRTEM analyses. Electrical characterization revealed that oxidation temperature at 700°C yielded the highest breakdown voltage, lowest leakage current density, and highest barrier height value.

Influence of applied voltage on the physical and electrical properties of anodic Sm 2 O 3 thin films on Si in 0.01 M NaOH solution

“…The attained dielectric constants for all the anodised samples range from 8.11 to 10.30. However, these obtained values are lower as compared with the reported literature values of ∼15 [14,[18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25]. This might be due to the extremely high value of Q eff , STD, D it , and D total , charges are trapped in Si metal, IL and less charge are transmitted to the Al gate, and thus the dielectric values are lower as compared with the literature values.…”

“…and the smallest grain size with the average of 1.55 Å. The grain size of the cubic-Sm 2 O 3 can be obtained through Scherrer equation [23,24]…”

“…Of these oxides, Sm 2 O 3 has been seen as one of the most promising candidates due to its high dielectric constant (∼15), a wide bandgap (4.33 eV), high conduction barrier (>1 eV), high breakdown electric field (5-7 MV/cm), and its good thermal stability when in direct contact with Si [14,[18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25]. Various deposition methods have been studied, such as metallo-organic chemical vapour deposition [26], pulsed laser deposition (PLD) [27], thermal evaporation [28], vacuum evaporation [29], resistive evaporation [30], anodisation [25], direct current (DC), and radio frequency (RF) sputtering [14,20,21,31,32].…”

Enhanced structural properties of In 2 O 3 nanoparticles at lower calcination temperature synthesised by co‐precipitation method

“…As a matter of fact, the stability of the aqueous solution (pH value) is important to determine the solution reactions and structural transformation in aqueous phase method [23,[35][36][37]. In our previous work, the as-prepared In(OH) 3 NPs were synthesised at different pH values via co-precipitation method and their structure properties were investigated [38]. It was found that the smallest size of as-prepared In(OH) 3 NPs (∼11 nm) with maximum stability (3.6 mV) were synthesised at pH 10 through co-precipitation method.…”

Frequency Dependence of C-V Characteristics of MOS Capacitors Containing Nanosized High-κ Ta2O5 Dielectrics

“…High permittivity dielectrics (high-) are nowadays extensively studied as a replacement of silicon dioxide in various microelectronics devices [1][2][3][4], like gate dielectrics [5], memory devices [6], and so forth.…”