• Transactions on Electrical and Electronic Materials
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• v.4 no.3
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• pp.34-37
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• 2003

[ $HfO_2$ ] and $HfO_xN_y$ films were deposited by plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition using $Hf[OC(CH_3)_3]_4$ as the precursor in the absence of $O_2$. The crystallization temperature of the $HfO_xN_y$ films is higher than that of the $HfO_2$ film. Nitrogen incorporation in $HfO_xN_y$ was confirmed by auger electron spectroscopy analysis. After post deposition annealing (PDA) at 800$\Box$, the EOT increased from 1.34 to 1.6 nm in the $HfO_2$ thin films, whereas the increase of EOT was suppressed to less than 0.02 nm in the $HfO_xN_y$. The leakage current density decreased from 0.18 to 0.012 $A/cm^2$ with increasing PDA temperature in the $HfO_2$ films. But the leakage current density of $HfO_xN_y$ does not vary with increasing PDA temperature because an amorphous $HfO_xN_y$ films suppresses the diffusion of oxygen through the gate dielectric.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2001.07a
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• pp.45-49
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• 2001

We have investigated physical and electrical properties of the Hf $O_2$/HfS $i_{x}$/ $O_{y}$ thin film for alternative gate dielectrics in the metal-oxide-semiconductor device. The oxidation of Hf deposited directly on the Si substrate results in the H $f_{x}$/ $O_{y}$ interfacial layer and the high-k Hf $O_2$film simultaneously. Interestingly, the post-oxidation N2 annealing of the H102/H1Si70y thin films reduces(increases) the thickness of an amorphous HfS $i_{x}$/ $O_{y}$ layer(Hf $O_2$ layer). This phenomenon causes the increase of the effective dielectric constant, while maintaining the excellent interfacial properties. The hysteresis window in C-V curves and the midgap interface state density( $D_{itm}$) of Hf $O_2$/HfS $i_{x}$/ $O_{y}$ thin films less than 10 mV and ~3$\times$10$^{11}$ c $m^{-2}$ -eV without post-metallization annealing, respectively. The leakage current was also low (1$\times$10-s A/c $m^2$ at $V_{g}$ = +2 V). It is believed that these excellent results were obtained due to existence of the amorphous HfS $i_{x}$/ $O_{y}$ buffer layer. We also investigated the charge trapping characteristics using Fowler-Nordheim electron injection: We found that the degradation of Hf $O_2$/HfS $i_{x}$/ $O_{y}$ gate oxides is more severe when electrons were injected from the gate electrode.e electrode.e.e electrode.e.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2003.11a
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• pp.11-14
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• 2003

[ $HfO_2$ ] thin films were deposited at $300^{\circ}C$ on p-type Si (100) substrates using $HfO_2(HfO_xN_y)$ as the precursor by plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition and were annealed at $300^{\circ}C$ in nitrogen plasma ambient. Compared with $HfO_2$, nitrogen plasma annealed $HfO_2$ show good chemical stability, higher crystallization temperature, lower leakage current and thermal stability. Leakage current density of nitrogen plasma annealed $HfO_2$ is approximately one order of magnitude lower than that of $HfO_2$ for the same EOT. The improvement in electrical characteristics of nitrogen plasma annealed $HfO_2$ can be explained by the better thermal stability due to nitrogen incorporation.

• Journal of the Microelectronics and Packaging Society
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• v.11 no.2 s.31
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• pp.29-35
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• 2004

Hafnium-oxide gate dielectric films deposited by a metal organic chemical vapor deposition technique on a $N_2-plasma$ treated SiNx and a hydrogen-terminated Si substrate have been investigated. In the case of $HfO_2$ film deposited on a hydrogen-terminated Si substrate, suppressed crystallization with effective carbon impurity reduction was obtained at $450^{\circ}C$. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy indicated that the interface layer was Hf-silicate rather than phase separated Hf-silicide and silicon oxide structure. Capacitance-voltage measurements show equivalent oxide thickness of about 2.6nm for a 5.0 nm $HfO_2/Si$ single layer capacitor and of about 2.7 nm for a 5.7 nm $HfO_2/SiNx/Si$ stack capacitor. TEM shows that the interface of the stack capacitor is stable up to $900^{\circ}C$ for 30 sec.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2010.02a
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• pp.381-381
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• 2010

$(ZrO_2)_{0.66}(HfO_2)_{0.34}$ thin films as gate dielectrics have been proposed to overcome the problems of tunneling current and degradation mobility inachieving a thin equivalent oxide thickness. An extremely thin $SiO_2$ layer is used in order to separate the carrier in MOSFET channel from the dielectric field fluctuation caused by phonons in the dielectric which decreases the carrier mobility. The electronic and optical properties influenced the device performance to a great extent. $(ZrO_2)_{0.66}(HfO_2)_{0.34}$ dielectric films on p-Si (100) were grown by atomic layer deposition method, for which the conduction band offsets, valence band offsets and band gapswere obtained by using X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and reflection electron energy loss spectroscopy. The band gap, valence and conduction band offset values for $(ZrO_2)_{0.66}(HfO_2)_{0.34}$ dielectric thin film, grown on Si substrate were about 5.34, 2.35 and 1.87 eV respectively. This band alignment was similar to that of $ZrO_2$. In addition, The dielectric function (k, $\omega$), index of refraction n and the extinction coefficient k for the $(ZrO_2)_{0.66}(HfO_2)_{0.34}$ thin films were obtained from a quantitative analysis of REELS data by comparison to detailed dielectric response model calculations using the QUEELS-$\varepsilon$(k, $\omega$)-REELS software package. These optical properties are similar with $ZrO_2$ dielectric thin films.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2009.06a
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• pp.104-104
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• 2009

Critical dimensions has rapidly shrunk to increase the degree of integration and to reduce the power consumption. However, it is accompanied with several problems like direct tunneling through the gate insulator layer and the low conductivity characteristic of poly-silicon. To cover these faults, the study of new materials is urgently needed. Recently, high dielectric materials like $Al_2O_3$, $ZrO_2$ and $HfO_2$ are being studied for equivalent oxide thickness (EOT). However, poly-silicon gate is not compatible with high-k materials for gate-insulator. To integrate high-k gate dielectric materials in nano-scale devices, metal gate electrodes are expected to be used in the future. Currently, metal gate electrode materials like TiN, TaN, and WN are being widely studied for next-generation nano-scale devices. The TaN gate electrode for metal/high-k gate stack is compatible with high-k materials. According to this trend, the study about dry etching technology of the TaN film is needed. In this study, we investigated the etch mechanism of the TaN thin film in an inductively coupled plasma (ICP) system with $O_2/BCl_3/Ar$ gas chemistry. The etch rates and selectivities of TaN thin films were investigated in terms of the gas mixing ratio, the RF power, the DC-bias voltage, and the process pressure. The characteristics of the plasma were estimated using optical emission spectroscopy (OES). The surface reactions after etching were investigated using X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and auger electron spectroscopy (AES).

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2008.06a
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• pp.477-477
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• 2008

For more than three decades, the gate dielectrics in CMOS devices are $SiO_2$ because of its blocking properties of current in insulated gate FET channels. As the dimensions of feature size have been scaled down (width and the thickness is reduced down to 50 urn and 2 urn or less), gate leakage current is increased and reliability of $SiO_2$ is reduced. Many metal oxides such as $TiO_2$, $Ta_2O_4$, $SrTiO_3$, $Al_2O_3$, $HfO_2$ and $ZrO_2$ have been challenged for memory devices. These materials posses relatively high dielectric constant, but $HfO_2$ and $Al_2O_3$ did not provide sufficient advantages over $SiO_2$ or $Si_3N_4$ because of reaction with Si substrate. Recently, $HfO_2$ have been attracted attention because Hf forms the most stable oxide with the highest heat of formation. In addition, Hf can reduce the native oxide layer by creating $HfO_2$. However, new gate oxide candidates must satisfy a standard CMOS process. In order to fabricate high density memories with small feature size, the plasma etch process should be developed by well understanding and optimizing plasma behaviors. Therefore, it is necessary that the etch behavior of $HfO_2$ and plasma parameters are systematically investigated as functions of process parameters including gas mixing ratio, rf power, pressure and temperature to determine the mechanism of plasma induced damage. However, there is few studies on the the etch mechanism and the surface reactions in $BCl_3$ based plasma to etch $HfO_2$ thin films. In this work, the samples of $HfO_2$ were prepared on Si wafer with using atomic layer deposition. In our previous work, the maximum etch rate of $BCl_3$/Ar were obtained 20% $BCl_3$/ 80% Ar. Over 20% $BCl_3$ addition, the etch rate of $HfO_2$ decreased. The etching rate of $HfO_2$ and selectivity of $HfO_2$ to Si were investigated with using in inductively coupled plasma etching system (ICP) and $BCl_3/Cl_2$/Ar plasma. The change of volume densities of radical and atoms were monitored with using optical emission spectroscopy analysis (OES). The variations of components of etched surfaces for $HfO_2$ was investigated with using x-ray photo electron spectroscopy (XPS). In order to investigate the accumulation of etch by products during etch process, the exposed surface of $HfO_2$ in $BCl_3/Cl_2$/Ar plasma was compared with surface of as-doped $HfO_2$ and all the surfaces of samples were examined with field emission scanning electron microscopy and atomic force microscope (AFM).

• Journal of the Korean Vacuum Society
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.14-21
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• 2010

Ge is one of the attractive channel materials for the next generation high speed metal oxide semiconductor field effect transistors (MOSFETs) due to its higher carrier mobility than Si. But the absence of a chemically stable thermal oxide has been the main obstacle hindering the use of Ge channels in MOS devices. Especially, the fabrication of gate oxide on Ge with high quality interface is essential requirement. In this study, $HfO_xN_y$ thin films were prepared by plasma-enhanced atomic layer deposition on Ge substrate. The nitrogen was incorporated in situ during PE-ALD by using the mixture of nitrogen and oxygen plasma as a reactant. The effects of nitrogen to oxygen gas ratio were studied focusing on the improvements on the electrical and interface properties. When the nitrogen to oxygen gas flow ratio was 1, we obtained good quality with 10% EOT reduction. Additional analysis techniques including X-ray photoemission spectroscopy and high resolution transmission electron microscopy were used for chemical and microstructural analysis.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2010.06a
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• pp.11-11
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• 2010

Thin-film-transistors (TFTs) that can be deposited at low temperature have recently attracted lots of applications such as sensors, solar cell and displays, because of the great flexible electronics and transparent. Transparent and flexible transistors are being required that high mobility and large-area uniformity at low temperature [1]. But, unfortunately most of TFT structures are used to be $SiO_2$ as gate dielectric layer. The $SiO_2$ has disadvantaged that it is required to high driving voltage to achieve the same operating efficiency compared with other high-k materials and its thickness is thicker than high-k materials [2]. To solve this problem, we find lots of high-k materials as $HfO_2$, $ZrO_2$, $SiN_x$, $TiO_2$, $Al_2O_3$. Among the High-k materials, $Al_2O_3$ is one of the outstanding materials due to its properties are high dielectric constant ( ~9 ), relatively low leakage current, wide bandgap ( 8.7 eV ) and good device stability. For the realization of flexible displays, all processes should be performed at very low temperatures, but low temperature $Al_2O_3$ grown by sputtering showed deteriorated electrical performance. Further decrease in growth temperature induces a high density of charge traps in the gate oxide/channel. This study investigated the effect of growth temperatures of ALD grown $Al_2O_3$ layers on the TFT device performance. The ALD deposition showed high conformal and defect-free dielectric layers at low temperature compared with other deposition equipments [2]. After ITO was wet-chemically etched with HCl : $HNO_3$ = 3:1, $Al_2O_3$ layer was deposited by ALD at various growth temperatures or lift-off process. Amorphous InGaZnO channel layers were deposited by rf magnetron sputtering at a working pressure of 3 mTorr and $O_2$/Ar (1/29 sccm). The electrodes were formed with electron-beam evaporated Ti (30 nm) and Au (70 nm) bilayer. The TFT devices were heat-treated in a furnace at $300^{\circ}C$ and nitrogen atmosphere for 1 hour by rapid thermal treatment. The electrical properties of the oxide TFTs were measured using semiconductor parameter analyzer (4145B), and LCR meter.