HfO ₂ gate dielectric on Ge (1 1 1) with ultrathin nitride interfacial layer formed by rapid thermal NH ₃ treatment

Interfacial properties of the ALD deposited HfO ₂ over the surface nitrided germanium substrate have been studied. The formation of GeON (∼1.7 nm) was confirmed by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and high resolution transmission electron spectroscopy (HRTEM) over the germanium surface. The effect of post deposition annealing temperature was investigated to study the interfacial and electrical properties of hafnium oxide/germanium oxynitride gate stacks. The high-k MOS devices with ultrathin GeON layer shows the good electrical characteristics including higher k value ∼18, smaller equivalent oxide thickness (EOT) around 1.5 nm and smaller hysteresis value less than 170 mV. The Q _eff and D _it values are somewhat greater due to the (1 1 1) orientation of the germanium and may be due to the presence of nitrogen at the interface. The Fowler-Northeim (FN) tunneling of Ge MOS devices has been studied. The barrier height Φ _B extracted from the plot is ∼1 eV.