<p>The purpose of this research has been to use off-line characterization techniques to establish material-specific properties of gate-stack constituents (i.e., high-k dielectric stacks and electrodes) and complete gate-stack structures. Hence, the characterization methodologies were established to evaluate high-k dielectrics at various processing levels, which, in part, determine the final characteristics of an advanced gate-stack device. Material systems that were investigated include: Al-O, Hf-Si-O, Zr-Si-O, Ti-O, Ta-O and Sr-Ti-O. Various physical and electrical characterization techniques were used to establish fundamental understandings of the materials selected, thin-film growth/deposition processes, and gate-stack structures. General conclusions for stable and unstable gate-dielectric materials have been establishedregarding the presence of a problematic interfacial layer at the Si/dielectric interface, graded dielectric layers, and the stability of gate electrodes on high-k dielectrics.The nanometer-scale chemistry of a gate-stack capacitor whose expected structure is Si/SiOxNy/Ta2O5/TiN/Al was studied by high-resolution electron-energy-loss spectroscopy in a scanning transmission electron microscope. Elemental profiles with near-atomic-level resolution for Si, Ti, N, Al, and O demonstrate that the device structure deviates drastically from the expectation and is chemically complex.It is concluded that the graded distribution of certain elements across the gate-stack capacitor completely precludes a band-structure model that assumes abrupt interfaces and chemically discrete layers. This study impacted on subsequent interpretations of flatband voltage extractions and electrical degradation following backside metallization/postmetallization annealing for capacitors whose dielectric-stack was based on Ta-O.Detailed and extensive electrical characterizations of Pt/SiOx/Sr-Ti-O/Si MOS capacitors were carried out to investigate reliability issues in a bi-layer gate dielectric. Based on these studies, models are proposed to describe the carrier transport and dielectric degradation for a Sr-Ti-O capacitor. It is concluded that conduction is dominated by Frenkel-Poole emission from mid-gap trap levels. The trap barrier height is estimated to be 1.51eV. A model based on the atomic and electronic structure of oxygen vacancies can account for the reported leakage-current characteristics. In addition, it is tentatively proposed that anode-hole injection and hole trapping control the dielectric degradation under gate injection.<P>
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:NCSU/oai:NCSU:etd-20010202-100109 |
| Date | 05 February 2001 |
| Creators | Li, Wenmei |
| Contributors | Dennis M. Maher, John J. Hren, Gerald Lucovsky, Veena Misra |
| Publisher | NCSU |
| Source Sets | North Carolina State University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/theses/available/etd-20010202-100109 |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to NC State University or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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