Effect of Rapid Thermal Annealing on Structural and Electrical Characteristics of Ni-Al-O Gate Dielectrics

The high-k Ni-Al-O gate dielectric films were deposited on Si(100) and platinized Si(111) substrates by reactive pulsed-laser deposition(PLD) at 400℃,and then annealed in a rapid thermal annealing furnace at various temperatures ranging from 600℃ to 750℃.The structural and electrical properties of the Ni-Al-O films were investigated.It is found that Ni-Al-O thin film annealed up to 750℃ is amorphous and the root-mean-square roughness of the film is less than 0.5 nm.The dielectric constant of the film measured at the frequency of 1 MHz is determined to be 9.9 with Pt/Ni-Al-O/Pt structure.The capacitance and leakage current density of the film annealed above 700℃ are 135 pF and 7.0×10 7 A/cm2,respectively.The results indicate that the amorphous Ni-Al-O film is a promising candidate for high-k gate dielectric.