Electrical properties of ferroelectric-gate FETs with SrBi₂Ta₂O₉ formed using MOCVD technique

Abstract

Ferroelectric-gate field-effect transistors (FeFETs) with a Pt/SrBi₂Ta₂O₉/Hf-Al-O/Si gate stack were fabricated using the metal-organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) technique to prepare the SrBi₂Ta₂O₉ (SBT) ferroelectric layer. A good threshold voltage (V _th) distribution was found for more than 90 n-channel FeFETs in one chip with a 170 nm SBT layer owing to the good film uniformity of the SBT layer deposited by MOCVD. The average memory window $(V_{\mathrm{w}}^{\mathrm{av}})$ and the standard deviations (σ _thl,σ _thr) of the left- and right-side branches of the drain-gate voltage curves of the FeFETs yielded a $V_{\mathrm{w}}^{\mathrm{av}}/(\sigma_{\mathrm{thl}} + \sigma_{\mathrm{thr}})$ value of 5.45, indicating that the FeFETs can be adapted for large-scale-integration. The electric field, the energy band profile in the gate stack, and the gate leakage current were also investigated at high gate voltages. We found that the effect of Fowler–Nordheim tunneling appeared under these conditions. Because of the tunneling injection and trapping of electrons into the gate insulators, the operation voltage ranges of the FeFETs were limited by this tunneling.