Transport and charging mechanisms in Ta_2O_5 thin films for capacitive RF MEMS switches application

摘要

The potential of sputtered Ta_2O_5 thin films to be used as dielectric layers in capacitive radio frequency microelectromechanical system switches is evaluated by investigating two factors of crucial importance for the performance of these devices which are the transport mechanisms and the charging effects in the dielectric layer. We find that Ta_2O_5 films show good electrical and dielectrical properties for the considered application in terms of a low leakage current density of 4 nA/cm~2 for E= 1 MV/cm, a high breakdown field of 4 MV/cm and a high dielectric constant of 32. For electric fields lower than 1 MV/cm the conduction mechanism is found to be variable-range hopping in the temperature range 300-400 K, while nearest-neighbor hopping is observed at higher temperatures. For fields in the range 1-4 MV/cm Poole-Frenkel becomes the dominant conduction mechanism. CurrenTand capacitance transients used to investigate the charging effects show a decay which is well described by the stretched-exponential law, thus providing further insights on capture and emission processes.