Interfacial and electrical properties of Ge MOS capacitor by ZrLaON passivation layer and fluorine incorporation

Abstract

Ge Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor (MOS) capacitor with HfTiON/ZrLaON stacked gate dielectric and fluorine-plasma treatment is fabricated, and its interfacial and electrical properties are compared with its counterparts without the ZrLaON passivation layer or the fluorine-plasma treatment. Experimental results show that the sample exhibits excellent performances: low interface-state density (3.7×1011 cm-2eV-1), small flatband voltage (0.21 V), good capacitance-voltage behavior, small frequency dispersion and low gate leakage current (4.41×10-5 A/cm2 at Vg = Vfb + 1V). These should be attributed to the suppressed growth of unstable Ge oxides on the Ge surface during gate-dielectric annealing by the ZrLaON interlayer and fluorine incorporation, thus greatly reducing the defective states at/near the ZrLaON/Ge interface and improving the electrical properties of the device.