AVS 50th International Symposium
    High-k Gate Dielectrics and Devices Topical Conference Tuesday Sessions
       Session DI-TuM

Paper DI-TuM6
Thin Film Growth and Composition Characterization of Hafnium Oxide Grown on Surface Treated Silicon by Atomic Layer Deposition

Tuesday, November 4, 2003, 10:00 am, Room 317

Session: High-k Dielectric Growth and Processing
Presenter: R. Inman, American Air Liquide
Authors: R. Inman, American Air Liquide
A. Deshpande, American Air Liquide
G. Jursich, American Air Liquide
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New materials are needed for future generation of semiconductor devices and hafnium oxide along with silicate and aluminate combinations continue to show promise for meeting stringent demands of the gate dielectric insulator layer in CMOS transistors. In this critical application, film growth needs to be well controlled by process conditions and deposition requires high level of conformality as layer thickness extends below 100 nm dimension and more complex gate geometries are proposed. To best serve these requirements, atomic layer deposition is an ideal method of growing such films. In this work, thin films of hafnium oxide were deposited on Si(100) substrates by means of atomic layer deposition (ALD) technique using tetrakis(diethylamino)hafnium precursor. The resulting composition and purity of these films were determined at different substrate temperatures using x-ray and Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectroscopies. FTIR studies confirmed that the resulting films are relatively free of carbon contamination and provided a measure of hydroxyl groups in the film. The kinetics of film growth was also investigated by measuring film thickness as a function of substrate temperature and reagent pulsing characteristics. The thickness measurements indicated a relatively mild inverse temperature dependence of film growth in the range of 250 - 350 C. The cycle number dependence of film growth was examined at both high and low cycle number in order to infer the nucleation growth of the film. These results will be presented using Si substrates with different surface treatments.