Effect of deposition temperature on the properties of CeO2 films grown by atomic layer deposition

Cerium oxide dielectric thin films have been grown on n-type silicon by atomic layer deposition using a monomeric homoleptic CeIV alkoxide precursor with water vapour. Herein we report the dielectric properties of CeO2 films deposited from tetrakis(1-methoxy-2-methyl-2-propanolate)cerium. The resulting films exhibit permittivities in the range 25–42 at 1 MHz with a strong dependency on the deposition temperature. The microstructural origin of this behaviour has been investigated. The as-deposited films were found to be crystalline and they exhibited the cubic fluorite structure for deposition temperatures in the range 150 °C to 350 °C. Variations in the crystallite sizes are governed by the deposition temperature and have been estimated using a Debye–Scherrer analysis of the X-ray diffraction patterns. The changing crystallite size correlates with changes seen in the triply-degenerate F2g first-order Raman line half-width at 465 cm− 1. It is concluded that the frequency dependency of the film dielectric properties is strongly influenced by the crystallite size which in turn is governed by the growth temperature.