Effects of oxygen content and postdeposition annealing on the physical and electrical properties of thin Sm2O3 gate dielectrics

✍ Scribed by Tung-Ming Pan; Chun-Chin Huang

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 2010
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 571 KB
• Volume: 256
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0169-4332
• DOI: 10.1016/j.apsusc.2010.05.048

✦ Synopsis

In this paper, we describe the physical properties and electrical characteristics of thin Sm 2 O 3 dielectric films deposited on Si (100) by means of rf reactive sputtering. The structural and morphological features of these films were studied, as a function of the growth conditions (three various argon-to-oxygen flow ratios: 10/15, 15/10 and 20/5, and temperature from 600 to 800 • C), by x-ray diffraction, atomic force microscopy, and x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. It is found that Sm 2 O 3 dielectric prepared under 15/10 flow ratio and annealed at 700 • C exhibits a thinner capacitance equivalent thickness and excellent electrical properties, including the interface trap density, the hysteresis and frequency dispersion in the capacitance-voltage curves. This condition is attributed to the reduction of the interfacial SiO 2 and silicate formation, and the small of surface roughness due to the optimization of oxygen in the Sm 2 O 3 film.