(Invited) Fabrication and Characterization of Ge-Based MIS Structures

Abstract

Germanium (Ge) is a very attractive channel material for future high-performance metal-insulator-semiconductor (MIS) devices because it exhibits much higher low-field electron (two times higher) and hole (four times higher) mobilities than Si. In addition, the smaller band gap of Ge than that of Si should allow the further reduction of power consumption in advanced integrated circuits and the lower melting point of Ge than that of Si also enables Ge-based device integration at low processing temperatures. However, until the early years of the 2000s, the reported electrical properties of high-k/Ge interfaces had been so poor that one of the critical issues in establishing Ge-based MIS technology was the effective passivation of Ge surfaces by dielectrics with superior interface properties. Although the quality of the Ge-MIS structure has been remarkably improved in the past decade, the relationship between the processing methods and the quality has not been discussed precisely.In this paper, we report on the fabrication of Ge MIS structures with various high-k dielectric materials and interlayer materials through various methods. We also introduce the convenient method to characterize the interface trap densities (Dit's) of the MIS capacitors by spectroscopic measurement of the interface trap density in an insulator/Ge interface at room temperature [1]. The effects of the insertion of interlayers into the interface of high-k insulator/Ge and the application of heat treatment to the Ge MIS structures will be also presented.For instance, the Dit of Ta2O5/GeNx/Ge fabricated by electron-cyclotron-resonance (ECR) plasma nitridation and sputtering was estimated to be 4×1011 cm-2 · eV-1 [2], that of Si3N4/GeNx/Ge by ECR plasma nitridation to be 1×1011 cm-2 · eV-1 [3-6], and that of Al2O3/GeO2/Ge by ECR plasma oxidation and sputtering to be 4.5×1010 cm-2 · eV-1 [7-9]. These results have summarized that the adequate surface preparations of the interfaces and films by the ECR plasma process with low energy plasma irradiation have been effective to realize the low Dit of MIS structures with GeO2 and/or GeNx.These results have expanded to another MIS structures fabricated by more conventional film formation technique such as the atomic layer deposition (ALD) and the radio frequency (RF) magnetron sputtering. The Dit of Al2O3/Al germanate/Ge by ALD with trimethylaluminum (TMA) and microwave-generated atomic oxygen was estimated to be 2×1011cm-2 · eV-1 [10], and that of HfO2/Ge by RF magnetron sputtering to be 5.9×1011 cm-2 · eV-1. These results have summarized that the heat treatment after the fabrication of MIS strucures have affected interface properties of germanate/Ge and oxide/Ge.Although the mechanism by which the process conditions act on the interface state is now under estimation, it has been speculated that the fabrication method, the insertion of the interlayers, and the application of heat treatment have a great influence on the interface characteristics. The structures and the fabrication method of various MIS will be discussed.Part of this work was carried out under the Cooperative Research Project Program of the Research Institute of Electrical Communication, Tohoku University.