Inductively Coupled Plasma를 이용한 lead-zirconate-titanate 박막의 식각 손상 개선

The reduction of etching damage in lead-zirconate-titanate thin films using Inductively Coupled Plasma

In this work, we etched PZT films with various additive gases ($O_2$ and Ar) in $Cl_2/CF_4$ plasmas, while mixing ratio was fixed at 8/2. After the etching, the plasma induced damages are characterized in terms of hysteresis curves, leakage current, retention properties, and switching polarization. When the electrical properties of PZT etched in $O_2$ or Ar added $Cl_2/CF_4$ were compared, the value of remanent polarization in $O_2$ added $Cl_2/CF_4$ plasma is higher than that in Ar. added plasma. The maximum etch rate of the PZT thin films was 145 nm/min for 30% Ar added $Cl_2/CF_4$ gas having mixing ratio of 8/2 and 110 nm/min for 10% $O_2$ added to that same gas mixture. In order to recover the ferroelectic properties of the PZT thin films after etching, we annealed the etched PZT thin films at $550^{\circ}C$ in an $O_2$ atmosphere for 10 min. From the hysteresis curves, leakage current, retention property and switching polarization, the reduction of the etching damage and the recovery via the annealing was turned out to be more effective when $O_2$ was added to $Cl_2/CF_4$ than Ar. X-ray diffraction (XRD) showed that the structural damage was lower when $O_2$ was added to $Cl_2/CF_4$. And the improvement in the ferroelectric properties of the annealed samples was consistent with the increased intensities of the (100) and the (200) PZT peaks.