Damage effect of fluorine implantation on PECVD α-SiOC barrier dielectric

In this work the dielectric properties of plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposited (PECVD) amorphous SiOC (α-SiOC) films with various concentrations of oxygen are investigated for the barrier dielectric application. Experimental results show after fluorine (F) ion implanted into α-SiOC film, the leakage current in carbide film is increased due to the generation of trap centers. Afterwards, the traps can be effectively repaired after thermal annealing, leading to the decrease of leakage current further. From the extraction of the current-voltage (J-E) characteristics, the conducting mechanism of the leakage current obeys the Poole-Frenkel type behavior for intrinsic, F-implanted and thermally annealed samples. Also, the barrier height of the F-implanted and thermally annealed samples are extracted and exhibits a higher value than that of the intrinsic sample.