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Investigation of PEALD ZrO2/La2O3-based high-k nanolaminates sandwiched between Al and Ti electrodes for MIM capacitors

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Abstract

ZrO2/La2O3/ZrO2/La2O3/ZrO2 (ZLZLZ) Penta-layered nanolaminates, which were deposited by an indigenously developed plasma-enhanced atomic layer deposition (ID-PEALD) system, sandwiched between the thermally evaporated Aluminum (Al) top electrode and RF-sputtered Titanium (Ti) bottom electrode have been investigated for the metal–insulator–metal (MIM) capacitors. In this work, the MIM capacitors were fabricated using ID-PEALD with their respective precursors and O2 plasma. The lowest RMS surface roughness of 0.2624 nm has been determined by atomic force microscopy (AFM). The pyrochlore formation of ZLZLZ nanolaminates was investigated by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. The post-deposition annealing by muffle furnace was employed on the ZLZLZ nanolaminates at 400°C. The lowest leakage current density of 9.70 × 10− 7 A/cm2 at 1 V has been achieved and a low barrier height of 0.12 eV has been calculated from ln(J) versus E1/2. High capacitance in the range of 30.5 fF/µm2 was achieved with the minimal leakage current at 1 V targeting to meet the ITRS projections for 2023. These nanolaminates provide a high dielectric constant (κ) of ~ 33 and a lower equivalent oxide thickness (EOT) of 0.5446 nm. These results suggest that the MIM capacitors fabricated by ID-PEALD deposited high-k nanolaminates are suitable to be used for memory applications in the future.

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Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge by thanking the financial support of the Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR file no. 22(0716)/16/EMR-II), and DST-FIST (file no.SR/FST/PS-II/2018/55(C)), New Delhi for conducting this work. The authors acknowledge to ICP-PTC clean laboratory of the Microelectronics Department, NCUT, Beijing, China and UGC-DAE CSR, Indore for providing necessary fabrication and characterization facilities, respectively. 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, Vaibhav Y. Borokar & Ashok M. Mahajan

  2. Department of Physics, Mawlana Bhashani Science and Technology University, Santosh, Tangail, 1902, Bangladesh

    Md. Rasadujjaman

  3. Department of Microelectronics, School of Information Science and Technology, North China University of Technology, Shijingshan, Beijing, 100041, China

    Jing Zhang

  4. State Key Laboratory of ASIC and System, School of Microelectronics, Fudan University, Shanghai, 200433, China

    Shi J. Ding

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  1. Sumit R. Patil
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  2. Vaibhav Y. Borokar
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  3. Md. Rasadujjaman
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  4. Jing Zhang
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  5. Shi J. Ding
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  6. Ashok M. Mahajan
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Contributions

SRP contributed to conceptualization, methodology, investigation, writing and preparation of original draft, writing, reviewing, and editing of the manuscript, formal analysis, and software; VYB contributed to methodology, reviewing and editing of the manuscript, data curation, formal analysis, validation, and visualization; MR contributed to visualization, writing, reviewing, and editing of the manuscript, data curation, and formal analysis; JZ, SJD, and AMM contributed to supervision and writing, reviewing, and editing of the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Ashok M. Mahajan.

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Patil, S.R., Borokar, V.Y., Rasadujjaman, M. et al. Investigation of PEALD ZrO2/La2O3-based high-k nanolaminates sandwiched between Al and Ti electrodes for MIM capacitors. J Mater Sci: Mater Electron 34, 1284 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10854-023-10655-9

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