Thin dielectric films grown by atomic layer deposition: Properties and applications

Abstract

Atomic layer deposition of high-k dielectrics is currently identified to be an enabling technology for a variety of applications. An overview of the characteristics of the technique is presented and its limiting factors and opportunities discussed. Particular attention is paid to Al 2 O 3 and HfO 2 films deposited on silicon in terms of material and electrical characteristics for their use in MEMS and radiation detectors technologies and the effects of post-deposition annealing processing are discussed.

Comparison between N 2 and O 2 anneals on the integrity of an Al 2 O 3 /Si 3 N 4 /SiO 2 /Si memory gate stack

“…However, compared with thermally grown SiO 2 , Al 2 O 3 usually contains a lot of defects even using atomic layer deposition. [3] The defects in Al 2 O 3 material can form trap sites and result in poor data retention due to the trapassisted tunneling leakage current. [4] Post-deposition annealing (PDA) is usually adopted to reduce trap density and to densify the gate stack structure.…”