High-K Gate Dielectrics Treated with in Situ Atomic Layer Bombardment

Abstract

Because the dielectric constant (K), the leakage current density (J g), and the interfacial state density (D it) are critical to high-K gate dielectrics, the layer-by-layer, in situ atomic layer bombardment (ALB) is proposed and explored to enhance these electrical properties in this study. The in situ helium/argon plasma bombardment was performed layer-by-layer in each cycle of atomic layer deposition (ALD) for preparing high-K gate dielectrics. As compared with the untreated high-K layer, the ALB treatment contributes to a significant reduction in J g by ∼3 orders of magnitude, together with an ∼11% increase of K value and a decrease of D it, of high-K gate dielectrics. The suppressed J g and the enhanced K value are ascribed to an increase of film density and a decrease of oxygen vacancies in the ZrO2 layer by the ALB treatment. The atomic annealing effect due to the ALB technique contributes to the decrease of D it. The result demonstrates that the ALD together with the ALB technique is highly effective to further enhance the dielectric properties of nanoscale thin films, which is important and applicable in a variety of fields including nanoelectronic, energy-saving, and biomedical devices.

Influence of growth temperature on dielectric strength of Al2O3 thin films prepared via atomic layer deposition at low temperature

“…Therefore, the oxygen deficiency in the ALD film could be attributed to the incomplete oxidation in the ALD process due to insufficient thermal energy, which was more pronounced at low temperatures. In addition, oxygen defects, such as oxygen vacancies have been reported to form a conduction path and deteriorate the electrical properties, including the breakdown characteristics of the thin films 20 , 21 . Therefore, the improved dielectric strength at higher growth temperature, as shown in Fig.…”

Integration of High‐Performance Cost‐Effective Copper‐Metal‐Organic‐Nanocluster‐based Gate Dielectric for Next‐Generation CMOS Applications

“…Figure shows the benchmarking of threshold voltage versus dielectric constant of Al/Cu‐MOCs/Si MIS structures as related with previously reported MOFs, inorganic, and organic dielectrics based p‐MIS structures [ 43,55,72,77,80,81 ] . The fabricated Al/Cu‐MOCs/Si MIS structures reported a dielectric constant of (κ ≈ 5.49), and threshold voltage of (≈0.17 V), respectively as shown in Figure 8.…”

“…The fabricated Al/Cu‐MOCs/Si MIS structures reported a dielectric constant of (κ ≈ 5.49), and threshold voltage of (≈0.17 V), respectively as shown in Figure 8. Cu‐MOCs dielectric based Al/Cu‐MOCs/Si MIS structures, exhibit positive threshold voltage as compared to mainstream, especially inorganic dielectric based MIS structures [ 55,77,81 ] . Also, Cu‐MOCs show high dielectric constant in comparison with state‐of‐art MOFs based dielectrics [ 43,80 ] .…”

Enhancement of Dielectric Properties of Nanoscale HfO2 Thin Films Via Atomic Layer Bombardment

“…On the other hand, the BAP process results in the degradation of the capacitance and J g compared to the H0MOS-C. The improvement of the CET and the J g in the HBAO MOS-C can intuitively be attributed to the film densification, 14,18,34 as revealed clearly in the XRR measurement (Figure 4). The degradation of the dielectric properties of the HBAP MOS-C can be ascribed to the poor material and surface quality according to the previous analyses, as shown in the XRR, XPS, and AFM characterizations.…”

“…Nevertheless, the high-temperature annealing may give rise to uncontrollable diffusion of dopants and interfacial chemical reactions, which are unfavorable for the fabrication of nanoscale devices. In our previous study, an innovative concept of atomic layer annealing (ALA) or atomic layer bombardment (ALB) has been proposed. ,, The exposure of inert gas plasma in each ALD cycle was utilized in the ALA/ALB process as an alternative energy source, during which the ion bombardment provides energy to the surface of the as-deposited layer . The utilization of argon (Ar) or helium (He) inert gases in the plasma is to prevent the involvement of a chemical reaction.…”