Monaghan, S. and O'Mahony, A. and Cherkaoui, K. and O'Connor, E. and Povey, I. M. and Nolan, M. G. and O'Connell, D. and Pemble, M. E. and Hurley, P. K. and Provenzano, G. and Crupi, F. and Newcomb, S. B.

2011

Electrical analysis of three-stage passivated In(0.53)Ga(0.47)As capacitors with varying HfO(2) thicknesses and incorporating an Al(2)O(3) interface control layer

Validated

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29

1

The atomic layer deposition of high dielectric constant oxides like HfO(2) on III-V substrates such as In(0.53)Ga(0.47)As leads to a poor interface, with the growth of In(0.53)Ga(0.47)As native oxides regardless of the surface pretreatment and passivation method. The presence of the native oxides leads to poor gate leakage current characteristics due to the low band gap of the native oxides and the presence of potential wells at the interface. In addition, the poor quality of this interface leads to very large interface state defect densities, which are detrimental to metal-oxide-semiconductor-based device performance. A wide band gap interlayer replacing the native oxide layer would remove the potential wells and provide a larger barrier to conduction. It may also assist in the improvement of the interface quality, but the problem remains as to how this native oxide interlayer cannot only be removed but prevented from regrowing. In this regard, the authors present electrical results showing that the atomic layer deposition (ALD) growth of a thin (similar to 1 nm) Al(2)O(3) layer before the ALD growth of HfO(2) causes a removal/reduction of the native oxides on the surface by a self-cleaning process without subsequent regrowth of the native oxides. As a result, there are significant improvements in gate leakage current densities, and significant improvements in the frequency dispersion of capacitance versus gate voltage, even when a defective In(0.53)Ga(0.47)As epitaxial layer on an InP substrate is employed. Measurements at different temperatures confirm that the frequency dispersion is mainly due to interface state defect responses and another weakly temperature dependent mechanism such as border traps, after accounting for the effects of nonideal In(0.53)Ga(0.47)As epitaxial layer growth defects where applicable. (c) 2011 American Vacuum Society. [DOI: 10.1116/1.3532826]