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The effect of post-deposition annealing on the chemical, structural and electrical properties of Al/ZrO2/La2O3/ZrO2/Al high-k nanolaminated MIM capacitors

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Abstract

The metal-insulator-metal (MIM) is being used as the potential device in the research interest of modern materials for nanoelectronics applications in semiconductor industries. In this context, the chemical, structural and electrical properties of plasma-enhance atomic layer deposition (PEALD) deposited ZrO2/La2O3/ZrO2 (ZLZ) nanolaminates at low substrate temperature have been studied and compared with, 300 °C, 400 °C, and 500 °C annealed ZLZ nanolaminates. The Tetrakis-(ethylmethylamido) zirconium-IV and Tris-(cyclopentadienyl) lanthanum-III were used as precursors for the zirconium and lanthanum whereas, O2 plasma was utilized as the oxidizing agent in each PEALD cycle. Root-mean-square (RMS) surface roughness was determined using atomic force microscopy. The x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and x-ray diffraction measurements were used to investigate the effect of post-deposition annealing on the phase change of ZLZ nanolaminates. The film annealed at 400 °C in an atmospheric environment gives the stable phase formation of the pyrochlore phase of La2Zr2O7. This stable phase formation of 400 °C annealed Al/ZLZ/Al MIM capacitor provides the lowest leakage current density of 6.20 × 10− 7 A/cm2 at 1 V compared to the as-deposited films. The barrier height of 0.42 eV for this MIM capacitor was extracted from the Fowler-Northeim (FN) tunneling model. The obtained results of PEALD nanolaminated high-k MIM capacitors having a controlled phase indicate the potential use for nanoelectronics applications.

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Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge with thanks the financial support of the Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR), and UGC-SAP DRS-III, New Delhi for conducting this work. The authors acknowledge to Indian Nanoelectronics User Program (INUP) of IIT, Bombay for providing necessary characterization facilities. One of the authors Sumit R. Patil is thankful to DST-INSPIRE for providing research fellowships.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Electronics, School of Physical Sciences, Kavayitri Bahinabai Chaudhari North Maharashtra University, Jalgaon, Maharashtra, 425001, India

    Sumit R. Patil, Viral N. Barhate, Vilas S. Patil, Khushabu S. Agrawal & Ashok M. Mahajan

  2. Department of Condensed Matter Physics and Materials Science, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Homi Bhabha Road, Mumbai, 400005, India

    Vilas S. Patil

  3. School of Electronic and Electrical Engineering, Sungkyunkwan University, Cheoncheon-dong 300, Suwon, 16419, South Korea

    Vilas S. Patil & Khushabu S. Agrawal

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  1. Sumit R. Patil
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Contributions

SRP: conceptualization, methodology, investigation, writing- original draft preparation, writing- reviewing and editing formal analysis; VNB: methodology, reviewing and editing, data curation, formal analysis; VSP: validation, software, visualization; KSA: visualization, investigation, writing- reviewing and editing, data curation, formal analysis; AMM: supervision, writing- reviewing and Editing.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Ashok M. Mahajan.

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Sumit R. Patil, Viral N. Barhate, Vilas S. Patil, Khushabu S. Agrawal, and Ashok M. Mahajan declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Patil, S.R., Barhate, V.N., Patil, V.S. et al. The effect of post-deposition annealing on the chemical, structural and electrical properties of Al/ZrO2/La2O3/ZrO2/Al high-k nanolaminated MIM capacitors. J Mater Sci: Mater Electron 33, 11227–11235 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10854-022-08097-w

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