Nanoscale and device level electrical behavior of annealed ALD Hf-based gate oxide stacks grown with different precursors

One of the main factors influencing the electrical properties of Atomic Layer Deposited (ALD) high-k materials is the precursor used during the growing process, which must provide good thermal stability to withstand the high temperatures used during the manufacturing process. In this work, the electrical properties of ALD-grown HfO2 ultra-thin films using different precursors were investigated at both, the nanoscale (using the Conductive Atomic Force Microscope, CAFM) and at the device level, which can give complementary information about the quality of the high-k layer. The effect of an annealing process above 1000 °C (before or after the gate electrode deposition) was also considered.