JOURNAL OF MATERIALS SCIENCE: MATERIALS IN ELECTRONICS 14 (2003) 375±378 A comparative study of anodic tantalum pentoxide and high-pressure sputtered titanium oxide S. DUENÄ AS,H.CASTAÂ N, J. BARBOLLA Departamento de Electricidad y ElectroÂnica, E.T.S.I.TelecomunicacioÂn, Universidad de Valladolid, Campus ``Miguel Delibes'', 47014 Valladolid, Spain E-mail: [email protected] E. SAN ANDREÂ S, A. DEL PRADO, I. MAÂ RTIL,G.GONZAÂ LEZ-DIÂAZ Departamento de FõÂsica Aplicada III (Electricidad y ElectroÂnica), Facultad de Ciencias FõÂsicas, Universidad Complutense, 28040 Madrid, Spain In this work we present a new method to fabricate improved TiO2 ®lms by using a high- pressure sputtering system. In order to minimize the damage induced in the substrate surface by the ion bombardment, a high chamber pressure of 100 Pa is used, which is very much higher than typical values in conventional systems. We present results obtained by X- ray diffraction and FTIR spectroscopy. Moreover, we will compare the properties of the resulting TiO2-insulator-metal capacitors with those of anodic Ta2O5. Very thin ®lms of TiO2 have been obtained with a very promising quality for future electron device fabrication. # 2003 Kluwer Academic Publishers 1. Introduction Recently, we observed the existence of conductance Development of high-density MOS dynamic random- transients for different conditions of voltage bias access memory (DRAM) devices with small cell areas amplitude, frequency, and temperature [3, 4]. We obtain has been accomplished by reducing the thickness of the supplementary information on the physical nature of SiO2 storage capacitors to maintain the required charge anodic tantalum pentoxide thin ®lms. Several relaxation storage level. However, the reductionof the SiO 2 mechanisms occur in the dielectric. At frequencies in the insulator thickness is going to approach the physical range of 100 kHz cathodic pulse bias induces relaxation limit. The microelectronics roadmap requires new high-k processes related to the moleculer orientation inside the dielectrics to replace siliconoxide infuture ULSI gen- dielectric. Moreover, the electric ®eld produces displace- erations. Presently, many ultra-large-scale-integration ments in interface charged traps that give rise to the (ULSI) research laboratories are aiming their efforts at slowest component of the conductance transients. This the production of very thin insulator ®lms equivalent to must be related to some absorptionpeak occurringat nanometer-scale SiO2 ®lms with a leakage current frequencies close to 100 kHz. Relaxation processes density less than 10 À 8AcmÀ 2 at the ULSI supply occurring at these frequencies are typically related to voltage. the orientation of dipoles caused by the applied electric Tantalum pentoxide er 25 has beeninvestigated as ®eld. one of the most promising materials for capacitor Titanium oxide is another challenger to replace silicon fabrication. Recently, we reported good-quality Ta2O5 dioxide. TiO2 ®lms obtained by different techniques ®lms fabricated by using a very inexpensive technique: show dielectric constant values of around 70±80, that is, anodization of tantalum silicide and tantalum nitride 20 times higher thanSiO 2. Many different process precursors. Inprevious studies we presented a fabrication techniques have been tried to obtain good TiO2 ®lms method of thermally stable anodic Ta2O5 MIM capaci- (CVD, d.c. and r.f.-sputtering, etc.) [5±8]. However, poor tors [1, 2]. We investigated the in¯uence of different electrical properties have beenreported interms of technological parameters on the capacitor performances. leakage currents, breakdown voltages, etc. This poor We studied the conduction mechanisms in our dielectric behavior canbe caused by structural defects inthe oxide, ®lms. Modi®ed and standard Poole±Frenkel effects damage produced onthe substrate surface duringthe appear as the main conduction mechanisms responsible process, chemical reactions between the different species for conduction in the capacitors. Finally, we observed by present in ®nal structures, etc. It is experimentally transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and Auger established that the structure, phase composition, and electronspectroscopy (AES) that Ta 2O5 ®lms actually electrical properties of TiO2 ®lms are very sensitive to consist of two layers: the lower one, just above the deposition conditions. In this work, we present a new substrate, containing nitrogen and the upper one with no method to fabricate improved TiO2 ®lms by using a high- nitrogen content. pressure sputtering system. 0957±4522 # 2003 Kluwer Academic Publishers 375 2. Sample fabrication 3.2. Anodic tantalum pentoxide MIM 2.1. Anodic tantalum pentoxide capacitors capacitors For the fabricationof tantalumoxide capacitors, TaN x and When capacitors are biased, impedance measurements Al±TaNx ®lms have beendeposited onsiliconwafers by noticeably change with respect to zero bias. Fig. 1 shows d.c. magnetron reactive sputtering. Varying the N2=Ar ``as-measured'' equivalent series capacitance and resis- ¯ow ratio during sputter deposition has varied the nitrogen tance for different values of the voltage bias. These content of the TaNx ®lms between8 and33 at %. All curves correspond to 20 V anodized capacitors. We also samples fabricated onAl±TaN x underwent thermal see that curves are different depending on the sign of the anneals at 350 C for 1 h. The anodization is performed applied voltage. Anodic bias means that the electric ®eld as follows: wafers are immersed ina 0.01 wt % citric acid direction in the oxide is the same as during anodizing, solution and act as the anode of a circuit where a Pt whereas during cathodic conditions it is just the opposite. electrode is used as the cathode. The anodization voltages We observe anasymmetric behavior betweenthem. We ranged from 5 to 230 V, with a soak time of 1 h. The interpret this asymmetry in terms of the anodic nature of growth rates are about 1:6±2 nm V À 1 and the ®lm the insulator: after fabrication, tantalum oxide molecules thickness ranges from 10 to 450 nm. In this way, we are oriented along a preferred orientation because of the have fabricated very thin®lm capacitors with anequiva- anodization ®eld. When applying an opposite electric lent silicon dioxide thickness (EOT) as low as 1.7 nm, ®eld variation molecules are reoriented giving rise to a having leakage density currents less than 10 À 6 AcmÀ 2. change in the dipolar moment, whereas anodic pulses do This means that we have fabricated capacitors with not produce any change. capacitance densities as high as 20 fF mm À 2. Atomic force In Fig. 2a we plot capacitor loss tangent curves at room microscopy and SEM cross-sectional images of these temperature and several voltages. We observe that at low ®lms show typical rms roughness values of around 3 nm. frequencies the loss tangent increases noticeably for cathodic voltages, whereas this effect does not appear for anodic voltages. Fig. 2b shows that this effect is more 2.2. High-pressure sputtered titanium apparent for high temperatures. These results reveal that dioxide capacitors the effect responsible for the increase of the conductivity Titanium dioxide thin ®lms were grown in a high- of tantalum oxide at low frequencies is both electrically pressure sputtering system. In order to minimize the and thermally activated. damage induced in the substrate surface by the ion We explainthese results as follows: Anodic Ta 2O3 bombardment, high chamber pressure values were used. ®lms actually consist of two dielectric layers with an TiO2 ®lms were deposited on(1 1 1) siliconsubstrates by sputtering in an oxygen atmosphere at a pressure of 100 Pa, which is very much higher thantypical values in conventional systems. We used a 3.5-cm diameter target of ceramic TiO2. The plasma power was 60 W and three sets of samples were fabricated at different substrate temperatures: 200, 400 and 600 C. The depositiontime was 4 h for all the samples. Subsequently, samples were submitted to rapid thermal anneals at different tempera- tures. The thicknesses of these ®lms were about 10 nm. 3. Experimental 3.1. R.F.-impedance analysis setup Impedance analysis has been carried out by measuring equivalent series resistance and capacitance values as a function of the frequency. For low and intermediate frequencies (40 Hz±110 MHz) we have used an Agilent 4280A Impedance Analyzer and for high frequencies (1 MHz±3 GHz) we used anAgilent4287A LCR Analyzer. These instruments use the I±V method [9] to carry out impedance measurements. The impedance is calculated from measured voltage and current values. Current is calculated using the voltage measurement across anaccurately knownlow-valueresistor, R.In practice, a low-loss transformer is used in place of R to prevent the effects caused by placing a low-value resistor inthe circuit. This method provides more reliable values thanothers commonlyused inr.f. whenmeasuring unknown impedance values. For instance, the network analysis method provides very poor accuracy when the measured impedance is much lower or higher than the Figure 1 Equivalent series capacitance of Ta2O5 capacitors for (a) characteristic impedance. anodic and (b) cathodic bias. 376 Figure 4 FTIR spectra for high-pressure sputtered TiO2 ®lms onsilicon substrates. asymmetrical behavior typically shownby anodic dielectrics. 3.3. High-pressure sputtered titanium oxide The titanium oxide ®lms were studied by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). No differences have been observed between the XRD spectra of original and sputtered substrates, indicating that the TiO2 ®lms are amorphous. As for the FTIR results, inFig. 4 we show the spectra of TiO2 ®lms annealed at a temperature of 1000 C. In the low-frequency region of the spectrum, the TO phonon band appears at 436 cm À 1. This is inagreementwith the Figure 2 (a) Loss tangent versus voltage curves for anodic tantalum Gonzalez et al. [10, 11] data onthe TO phononmodesof pentoxide at room temperature, (b) Loss tangent at cathodic voltage for the nanocrystalline titania. When the same ®lm was anodic tantalum pentoxide at several temperatures.