Effects of defects generated in ALD TiO2 films on electrical properties and interfacial reaction in TiO2/SiO2/Si system upon annealing in vacuum

Abstract

Thin TiO2 layers grown at 130°C on SiO2-coated Si substrates by atomic layer deposition (ALD) using TTIP and H2O as precursors were annealed, and the effects of the annealing temperature on the resulting electrical properties of TiO2 and the interface properties between a Pt electrode and TiO2 were examined using transmission line model (TLM) structures. The as-deposited TiO2 thin film had an amorphous structure with OH groups and a high resistivity of 6×103Ω-cm. Vacuum annealing at 700 °C transformed the amorphous film into an anatase structure and reduced its resistivity to 0.04Ω-cm. In addition, the vacuum-annealing of the TiO2/SiO2 structure at 700°C produced free silicon at the TiO2-SiO2 interface as a result of the reaction between the Ti interstitials and SiO2. The SiO2 formed on the TiO2 surface caused a Schottky contact, which was characterized by the TLM method. The use of the TLM method enabled the accurate measurement of the resistivity of the vacuum-annealed TiO2 films and the characterization of the Schottky contacts of the metal electrode to the TiO2.