THE INFLUENCE OF NH_3 ANNEAL ON THE CRYSTALLIZATION KINETICS OF HfO_2 GATE DIELECTRIC FILMS

摘要

HfO_2 gate dielectric thin films have been exposed to anneal processing in NH_3 and N_2 ambient in order to decouple the influence of N incorporation from that of the thermal cycle alone. We report on the effectiveness of NH_3 processing to introduce N into the dielectric film system and characterize the local coordination and crystallization kinetics that give rise to the resultant high-k film microstructure as determined from a variety of high resolution spectroscopic and imaging analysis techniques.