AVS 49th International Symposium
    Dielectrics Thursday Sessions
       Session DI+EL-ThM

Paper DI+EL-ThM3
Electrical and Material Properties of 10 nm Thick Hf-Doped Tantalum Oxide High k Dielectrics

Thursday, November 7, 2002, 9:00 am, Room C-107

Session: Issues for Gate Dielectrics
Presenter: J. Lu, Texas A&M University
Authors: J. Lu, Texas A&M University
J.Y. Tweg, Texas A&M University
Y. Kuo, Texas A&M University
P.C. Liu, AMD
B.W. Schueler, Physical Electronics
Correspondent: Click to Email
A high k gate dielectric material that replaces the nm thick SiO@sub 2@ is necessary for sub 100 nm ULSICs for many practical reasons.@footnote 1@ Metal oxides such as Ta@sub 2@O@sub 5@, HfO@sub 2@, ZrO@sub 2@ and Al@sub 2@O@sub 3@, are promising candidates and have been intensively investigated. However, they suffer from problems such as the high leakage current and high interface states. It was reported that by adding a third element into the metal oxide, some of the dielectric properties could be improved.@footnote 2,3@ In this paper, we studied the Hf-doped Ta@sub 2@O@sub 5@ thin films deposited by reactive magnetron sputtering. Electrical properties of the 10 nm thick films, such as the k value and leakage current, were measured. Compositions, microstructures, and interfacial properties of the film were probed with ESCA, TEM and SIMS. Compared with the undoped film, the doping process reduced the leakage current, improved the k value, and lowered the fixed charge density. Influences of the post-deposition annealing process parameters, such as temperature and time, to high k properties were also studied. We are going to present these experimental results and to compare them with literature reports. This project is supported by the Texas Higher Education Coordination Board ATP program (project # 0005120003-1999). @FootnoteText@ @footnote 1@International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors, 1999 edition, SIA. @footnote 2@Y. Kuo, J. Y. Tewg, J. P. Donnelly, and J. Lu, ECS Procs. Intl. Semi. Technol. Conf., 2001-17, 324, 2001. @footnote 3@Y. Kuo, J. Y. Tewg, and J. P. Donnelly, ECS Meeting Abstract, 2001-1, No. 232, 2001.