Affiliation: | aDepartment of Chemistry, National Research Lab for Polymer Synthesis and Physics, School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Center for Integrated Molecular Systems, and Division of Molecular and Life Sciences (BK-21 Program), Pohang University of Science and Technology (Postech), Pohang 790-784, Republic of Korea bMaterials Analysis Team, Research Institute of Industrial Science and Technology (RIST), Pohang 790-600, Republic of Korea |
Abstract: | High dielectric constant (high-k) gate dielectric alumina films were prepared with nanoscale thicknesses on p-type silicon substrates by atomic layer deposition (ALD) with alternating pulses of trimethyl aluminum, nitrogen, ozone and nitrogen, and some of them were further thermally annealed. These high-k gate dielectric films were characterized by synchrotron X-ray reflectivity (XR), and the XR data were quantitatively analyzed, providing the following structural parameters of each gate dielectric film: the surface roughness and interfacial roughness, the electron density profile, the number of layers, and the thickness of individual layers. These structural characteristics were then analyzed in detail by considering the ALD processing conditions and post-thermal annealing history. |