AVS 52nd International Symposium
    Electronic Materials and Processing Tuesday Sessions
       Session EM-TuP

Paper EM-TuP1
Nano-scale Characterization of High-k Dielectric Materials by Conducting Atomic Force Microscopy

Tuesday, November 1, 2005, 4:00 pm, Room Exhibit Hall C&D

Session: Electronic Materials and Processing Poster Session
Presenter: C. Teichert, University of Leoben, Austria
Authors: S. Kremmer, University of Leoben, Austria
H. Wurmbauer, University of Leoben, Austria
C. Teichert, University of Leoben, Austria
G. Tallarida, Laboratorio MDM - INFM, Italy
S. Spiga, Laboratorio MDM - INFM, Italy
C. Wiemer, Laboratorio MDM - INFM, Italy
M. Fanciulli, Laboratorio MDM - INFM, Italy
Correspondent: Click to Email
The steadily shrinking device dimensions in semiconductor industries demand for advanced electrical characterization methods operating on the nanometer scale. One suitable technique already used for the evaluation of silicon gate oxide quality@footnote 1,2@ is Conducting Atomic-Force Microscopy (C-AFM). C-AFM, operating in ultra high vacuum (UHV), is used to study different high-k dielectric thin films with regard to their electric properties and homogeneity. The UHV conditions are mandatory here to avoid surface modification during the experiment. ZrO@sub 2@ and HfO@sub 2@ films of different thickness have been grown by atomic layer chemical vapor deposition on silicon substrates. With increasing film thickness their structure changes from amorphous to polycrystalline with different phases. Therefore, local current-voltage measurements are used to obtain a statistical distribution of the leakage current as a function of applied voltage and film thickness. Further, two dimensional current scans are performed to obtain the local distribution of leakage current. These investigations provide a deeper insight into the influence of crystallites formation on nano-scale electrical properties of two selected dielectric materials. @FootnoteText@@footnote 1@ S. Kremmer, C. Teichert, E. Pischler, H. Gold, F. Kuchar, M. Schatzmayr, Surf. and Interf. Anal. 33 (2002), 168. @footnote 2@ S. Kremmer, H. Wurmbauer, C. Teichert, G. Tallarida, S. Spiga, C. Wiemer, M. Fanciulli, J. Appl. Phys. 97/7 (2005), 74315-1-7.