Exploring metalorganic chemical vapor deposition of Si-alloyed Al2O3 dielectrics using disilane

The alloying of Al2O3 films with Si is a promising route to improve gate dielectric properties in Si- and wide-bandgap- based MOS devices. Here we present a comprehensive investigation of alloyed film growth by metalorganic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) using trimethylaluminum, disilane, and oxygen precursors over a variety of temperature and flow conditions. Binary growth rates of Al2O3 and SiO2 were evaluated to explain the aggregate growth kinetics of Si-alloyed Al2O3 films, and refractive indices were used to monitor Si incorporation efficiencies. The temperature dependence of the reaction rate of disilane with oxygen was found to be similar to that of trimethylaluminum and oxygen, leading to well-behaved deposition behavior in the kinetic and mass-transport controlled growth regimes. Compositional predictability and stability was achieved over a wider growth space with disilane-based growths as compared to previous work, which used silane as the Si precursor instead. In situ (Al,Si)O/n-GaN MOS gate stacks were grown and showed increasing reduction of net positive fixed charges with higher Si composition.