Investigation of the gate oxide leakage current of low temperature formed hafnium oxide films

摘要

In this work, low temperature physically deposited hafnium oxide films are investigated in terms of their electrical properties through measurements and analysis of leakage currents in order to understand the defect's behavior in this dielectric material. Two extreme conditions will be presented and discussed: the first one concerns the use of a nearly trap-free hafnium oxide layer, while the second one concerns the use of a hafnium oxide film with a very large amount of electrically active traps. Particular emphasis is given to the detection and comparison of the shallow and deep traps that are responsible for the room temperature leakage of these films. It is shown that by modifying the amount of traps in the hafnium oxide layer, achieved by changing the deposition conditions, the trap's energy location is heavily influenced. The nearly trap-free sample exhibits Ohmic conduction at low fields (with activation energies in the range 16-33meV for low temperatures and 0.13-0.14eV for higher than ambient temperatures), Poole-Frenkel conduction at high fields (trap depth in the range 0.23-0.38 eV), while at low temperatures and high fields, the Fowler-Nordheim tunneling is identified (estimated barrier height of 1.9 eV). The charge-trap sample on the other hand exhibits Ohmic conduction at low fields (activation energies in the range 0.26-0.32 eV for higher than ambient temperatures), space charge limited current conduction at intermediate fields (exponent n = 3), while at high fields the Poole-Frenkel conduction appears (trap depth in the range 1.63-1.70 eV).