The effects of prior nitridation process of silicon surface and different metal gates on the Capacitance Voltage Characteristics of metal-Ta2O5-Si MOS capacitor

Abstract

According to the 2004 International Technology Roadmap of Semiconductor (ITRS), for sub-micron technology, an equivalent oxide thickness (EOT) less than 1 nm is required. However, for such thickness levels, the native oxide SiO2 is unacceptable since it does not posses its inherited physical properties and results in high leakage current density resulting in reduced device performance. The replacement of SiO2 with high dielectric constant material (high-k) may eliminate such problems since it will allow the usage of thicker dielectric material. The leakage current will be reduced while maintaining the same levels of inversion charge. In this study, the electrical properties of metal-Ta2O5-Si MOS capacitor were investigated for devices prepared with different conditions. A prior nitridation process of silicon surface in N2O and NH3 gas before Ta2O5 was carried out to improve interface quality. In addition, different metal gates formed on the Ta2O5 oxide layer were also used in order to see the effects of top oxide-metal gate on the electrical properties of MOS capacitors. The metal gates used are Al, TiN and W. High frequency (1MHz) Capacitance-Voltage Spectroscopy was used to understand the effects of prior nitridation process and metal gates on the Ta2O5 high-k oxide properties. From the analysis of high frequency C-V curves, oxide capacitance, dielectric constant, EOT, leakage current density, conductance, flat band voltage VFB shift, mobile charge density, effective oxide charge and interface trap density Dit were obtained and compared with those of reference samples. Reference sample -1 has native oxide SiO2 and Al metal gate and Reference sample-2 has Ta2O5 oxide layer with unnitrided silicon surface. It has been found that, the replacement of SiO2 gate oxide with Ta2O5 oxide layer results in an increase in dielectric constant by several factors and using nitridation process prior to Ta2O5 oxide layer improves the interface properties. Many promising results were obtained for samples with W metal gates and nitrided silicon surface prior to formation of Ta2O5 oxide layer. It is potentially applicable to future MOS devices.