Study on the AlN/Si interface properties

In this paper, Al/AlN/Si(1 1 1) metal–insulator–semiconductor (MIS) structure has been fabricated and their interfacial properties have been investigated using capacitance–voltage techniques. The dielectric constant of AlN was found to vary from 5.01 to 8.67 with the frequency decreasing from 1 MHz to 50 Hz due to the existance of a transition zone between AlN and Si substrate which is not forbidden to the electronics. The distribution of the interface states in the interface was extracted from the frequency-dependent capacitance–voltage characteristics of the MIS structure. The interface state density D _it in the silicon forbidden band gap was in the order of 10 ¹² eV ⁻¹ cm ⁻² and the time constant was about 10 ⁻⁵ s through analyzing the capacitance as a function of frequency.