Microstructure, optical and electrical properties of solution-derived peroxo-zirconium oxide gate dielectrics for CMOS application

Abstract Solution-processed high-k gate dielectrics for metal-oxide-semiconductor (MOS) capacitor have been widely investigated with the objective of achieving high performance field effect transistors (FETs) for next-generation microelectronic device. In current work, the effect of postdeposition annealing temperature on the microstructure, optical and electrical properties of peroxo-zirconium oxide (ZrO 2 ) gate dielectrics fabricated by a simple spin-coating method has been studied systemically. By means of characterization of spectroscopy ellipsometry and ultraviolet–visible spectroscopy, the thicknesses and optical constants of ZrO 2 gate dielectrics have been determined precisely. The annealing temperature dependent electrical properties of ZrO 2 films were determined by capacitance–voltage ( C–V ) and leakage current density–voltage ( J–V ) measurements. Based on the implementation as gate insulator, the solution-processed ZrO 2 -based MOS capacitor showed good and stable performances during annealing at 700 °C. As a result, the dominant leakage conduction mechanism for optimized 700 °C-annealed sample has been discussed in detail. Our results show the possibility of the solution-processed ZrO 2 dielectric layer as a gate insulator for application in MOSFETs.