Physical and electrical properties of plasma nitrided germanium oxynitride

Abstract

The physical and electrical properties of plasma nitrided germanium oxynitride (GeON) and silicon oxynitride (SiON) layers are studied. In this study, two kinds of plasma nitridation process were utilized to form oxynitride layers. High pressure remote inductive coupled plasma and low pressure radial line slot antenna (RLSA) plasma provide radical dominant and ion dominant plasma nitridation processes, respectively. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy results show different properties of GeON layers based on each plasma nitridation process. The remote (radical) plasma nitridation forms water soluble nitrogen-germanium bonding, and RLSA (ion) plasma nitridation forms water resistant nitrogen-germanium bonding. Although hydrogen containing plasmas or ion dominant plasma process can incorporate high amount of nitrogen into oxynitride layers, such process is accompanied by water insoluble suboxide formation and charging damage. Using p-type metal oxide semiconductor (MOS) capacitors, basic electrical properties of GeON and SiON films were also studied. Approximately four order magnitude higher gate leakage current was observed on GeON MOS capacitor, which results in capacitance reduction and a large dissipation factor at high gate voltage.

Electrical properties of germanium/metal-oxide gate stacks with atomic layer deposition grown hafnium-dioxide and plasma-synthesized interface layers

“…1 In a previous study, we explained that remote plasma nitrided GeON layer is water soluble. 19 By taking into account these results, we infer that the GeON layer is decomposed and incorporated in HfO 2 layers during the H 2 O assisted ALD process. Defects produced by the incorporated germanium in the HfO 2 may result in additional negative V fb shift.…”

Synthesis and temperature dependent photoluminescence properties of Mn doped Ge nanowires

“…XRD also shows that there is no formation of GeO 2 , which is soluble 12 in H 2 O and decomposes relatively in lower temperature. On the other hand, GeO is highly stable 13 ͑insoluble in H 2 O͒ in air and also relatively stable in higher temperature.…”

In-Situ Studies of Interfacial Bonding of High-k Dielectrics for CMOS Beyond 22nm

“…Further nitridation follows the same trend of increasing nitrogen and Other investigations have also found that nitrogen species in remote plasma nitrided GeON are also water soluble. (29) Thus an ultra-thin layer of Ge 3 N 4 located at the GeON/Ge interface may mitigate water solubility problems for high-deposition based on water chemistry such as TMA ALD. Figure 4 shows the Ge3d and Hf 4f regions for the starting GeON, 0.6 nm HGO, 6 nm HGO, and the later after PDA anneal.…”