| Abstract: | To understand the influence of oxygen vacancies in on the electrical and reliability characteristics, we have investigated area-dependent leakage-current characteristics of HfO2 with large-area device and conducting atomic force microscopy (C-AFM). Unlike with the large-area analysis with typical capacitor and transistor, a clear evidence of oxygen vacancy was observed in nanoscale-area measurement using the C-AFM. Similar observations were made in various postdeposition annealing ambients to investigate the generation and reduction of oxygen vacancy in HfO2 . With optimized postdeposition annealing for oxygen vacancy, significantly reduced charge trapping was observed in HfO2 nMOSFET. |
