Temperature dependent electron effective mass and barrier height in HfO2 based metal/oxide/metal devices

Abstract

Electrical measurements are realized on Cu/HfO2/Pt capacitors to extract the electron effective mass in HfO2 and the barrier height at the Cu/HfO2 interface. The dominant conduction mechanisms are found to be the Schottky emission at medium voltages and the Fowler–Nordheim tunneling at high voltages. Previous research has usually been carried out by assuming a constant value for either the electron effective mass in oxide or the interfacial potential barrier height to determine the other parameter. However, in contrast to that general practice, an iterative method was proposed in the present study to determine, at the same time, the electron effective mass in HfO2 and the barrier height at the Cu/HfO2 interface without making any prior assumption about their values. The temperature dependence of these two parameters was also studied in the 298–423 K range. It is found that they strongly vary with temperature. The effective mass decreases quadratically with temperature, while the barrier height increases linearly with temperature.