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Effects of O2 and N2 Gas Concentration on the Formation of Ho2O3 Gate Oxide on 4H-SiC Substrate

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Abstract

In this paper, the impacts of flow concentration of oxynitridation on the structural and electrical performance of a high-κ Ho2O3 dielectric on n-type 4H-SiC were studied. The Ho2O3 films were grown using Physical vapour deposition (PVD) RF magnetron sputtering at various O2 and N2 gas flow concentrations from (25 – 100%), and constant temperature and period of 900 °C and 15 min, respectively. The results of Fourier transform infra-red (FTIR) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis show that cubic c-Ho2O3 and monoclinic (b)-SiO2 crystal structures were formed in between the SiC substrate and the Ho2O3 thin films during thermal oxynitridation. The microstrain and crystallite size were obtained by Williamson-Hall (W–H) plot. The electrical measurements from the MOS capacitor revealed that 50% oxynitridation exhibited the most encouraging electrical results, with the smallest leakage current density of 6.05 × 10–2 A/cm2 at a breakdown field of 7.52 MV/cm and barrier height value of 18.5 eV. These results provide potential and important implications of using Ho2O3/SiC gate stack, validating the usefulness of leakage current density–breakdown electric field measurement in understanding the operation of a gate dielectric in MOS-based devices.

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Acknowledgements

This work is financially supported by Ministry of Higher Education (MOHE) Malaysia via Fundamental Research Grant Scheme (FRGS) (Grant No. FP049-2020) and Universiti Malaya (UM) via Frontier Research Grant (Grant No. FG011-17AFR) and Southeast Asia – Taiwan Universities (SATU) Joint Research Scheme (Grant No. ST016-2020).

All authors acknowledge Universiti Malaya (Malaysia), Lagos State University (Nigeria), and Universiti Teknologi Brunei (Brunei) for the support and resources in completing this work.

Funding

This work is financially supported by Ministry of Higher Education (MOHE) Malaysia via Fundamental Research Grant Scheme (FRGS) (Grant No. FP049-2020) and University of Malaya via Faculty’s Research Grant (GPF017A-2018) and Southeast Asia – Taiwan Universities (SATU) Joint Research Scheme (ST016-2020).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre of Advanced Materials, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Universiti Malaya, 50603, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

    Kazeem Olabisi Odesanya, Roslina Ahmad, Andri Andriyana & Yew Hoong Wong

  2. Department of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Lagos State University, Epe Campus, Lagos, Nigeria

    Kazeem Olabisi Odesanya

  3. Centre of Advanced Manufacturing and Material Processing, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Universiti Malaya, 50603, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

    S. Ramesh, Chou Yong Tan & Yew Hoong Wong

  4. Department of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Brunei, Tungku Highway, Gadong, BE1410, Brunei Darussalam

    S. Ramesh

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  1. Kazeem Olabisi Odesanya
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Contributions

Kazeem Olabisi Odesanya – Formal Analysis, Data Curation, Writing – Original Draft.

Roslina Ahmad, Andri Andriyana, S. Ramesh, Chou Yong Tan – Resources, Supervision, Writing – Review & Editing.

Yew Hoong Wong – Conceptualization, Validation, Visualization, Resources, Supervision, Writing – Review & Editing, Project Administration, Funding Acquisition.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Yew Hoong Wong.

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Odesanya, K.O., Ahmad, R., Andriyana, A. et al. Effects of O2 and N2 Gas Concentration on the Formation of Ho2O3 Gate Oxide on 4H-SiC Substrate. Silicon 15, 755–761 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12633-022-02040-8

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