Atomic Vapour Deposition (AVD™) Process for High Performance HfO22 Dielectric Layers

ABSTRACTHf-family compounds have been widely studied as high k gate dielectric materials, they can be elaborated in a wide range of deposition techniques but ALD and MOCVD are the most advanced. In this contribution, the deposition of pure HfO2 is performed by Atomic Vapour Deposition, which is a sort of pulsed-mode MOCVD. The precursor, diluted into a solvent, is pulsed through specific injectors (TriJet®), micro-droplets are vaporised and distributed to the substrate through a showerhead. ATR-FTIR and Hg-probe measurements have been extensively used to evaluate the materials. The advantage of this specific MOCVD system is that it allows working within a wide range of liquid injection frequencies. Thus, we have been able to show that the frequency of injection has a huge impact on the structural and electrical properties of the material. It has been evidence that working at low frequencies is crucial in order to get good electrical behaviour. Higher temperature deposition shows also a clear benefit. An EOT of 1.15 nm with 6.10−2 A/cm2 at |Vfb| + 1 V, that is to say about 3 orders of magnitude below what is obtained with SiO2 has been obtained on capacitors with TiN gate. This is a very good achievement fore pure HfO2 deposited by MOCVD.This work has been made in the frame of MEDEA + T207 European project with the help of Air Liquide and Epichem.