On the Scalability of Doped Hafnia Thin Films

The scaling behavior of Gd- and Al-doped HfO2 films as gate dielectrics in metal-oxide-semiconductor (MOS) capacitors was studied. For equivalent oxide thicknesses (EOTs) in the range of 10 A, crystallized Gd:HfO2 showed higher leakage current densities than crystallized Al:HfO2, with undoped HfO2 in between. Ultimately, the scalability of Al:HfO2 was limited by the ability to crystallize the films at a given thermal budget. As a result, for post-deposition annealing at 800 °C, the EOT of Al:HfO2 based MOS capacitors was limited to ∼8 A. However, for such an EOT, leakage current densities were reduced by about 100× with respect to HfO2. This demonstrates the high potential of Al:HfO2 for low-standby-power MOS devices.