Direct Tunneling Currents Through Gate Dielectrics in Deep Submicron MOSFETs

A direct tunneling model through gate dielectric s in CMOS devices in the frame of WKB approximation is reported.In the model,an im proved one-band effective mass approximation is used for the hole quantization, where valence band mixing is taken into account.By comparing to the experiments, the model is demonstrated to be applicable to both electron and hole tunneling c urrents in CMOS devices.The effect of the dispersion in oxide energy gap on the tunneling current is also studied.This model can be further extended to study th e direct tunneling current in future high-k materials.

A Microwave High Power Static Induction Transistor with Double Dielectrics Gate Structure

The designing approaches and key fabricating technologies for high frequency high power double dielectrics gate static induction transistor (DDG SIT) with mixed non-saturating I-V characteristics are presented.The effects of parasitic gate-source capacitance (C gs) on the power performance of SIT are discussed.The main methods and considerations to diminish C gs,consequently to improve the high power performance are given.Synchronous epitaxy technology is the critical step to decrease C gs.The 7-μm pitch DDG SIT delivering output power >20W with >7dB power gain and >70% drain efficiency at 400MHz,and delivering output power >7W with >5dB power gain and >50% drain efficiency at 700MHz are successfully fabricated.

Polymer nanocomposite dielectrics with high electrocaloric effect for flexible solid-state cooling devices

Nanocomposite dielectrics show great promising application in developing next generation wearable all-solidstate cooling devices owing to the possessed advantages of high cooling efficiency, light-weight and small volume without the induced greenhouse effect or serious harm to ozone layer in the exploited refrigerants. However, low electrocaloric strength in nanocomposite dielectric is severely restricting its wide-spread application because of high applied operating voltage to improve electrocaloric effect. After addressing the chosen optimized ferroelectric ceramic and ferroelectric polymer matrix in conjunction with the analysis of crucial parameters, recent progress of electrocaloric effect(ECE) in polymer nanocomposites has been considerably reviewed. Subsequently, prior to proposing the conceptual design and devices/systems in electrocaloric nanocomposites, the existing developed devices/systems are reviewed. Finally, conclusions and prospects are conducted, including the aspects of materials chosen, structural design and key issues to be considered in improving electrocaloric effect of polymer nanocomposite dielectrics for flexible solidstate cooling devices.

Challenges in Atomic-Scale Characterization of High-k Dielectrics and Metal Gate Electrodes for Advanced CMOS Gate Stacks

The decreasing feature sizes in complementary metal-oxide semiconductor （CMOS） transistor technology will require the replacement of SiO2 with gate dielectrics that have a high dielectric constant （high-k） because as the SiO2 gate thickness is reduced below 1.4 nm, electron tunnelling effects and high leakage currents occur in SiO2, which present serious obstacles to future device reliability. In recent years significant progress has been made on the screening and selection of high-k gate dielectrics, understanding their physical properties, and their integration into CMOS technology. Now the family of hafnium oxide-based materials has emerged as the leading candidate for high-k gate dielectrics due to their excellent physical properties. It is also realized that the high-k oxides must be implemented in conjunction with metal gate electrodes to get sufficient potential for CMOS continue scaling. In the advanced nanoscale Si-based CMOS devices, the composition and thickness of interfacial layers in the gate stacks determine the critical performance of devices. Therefore, detailed atomic- scale understandings of the microstructures and interfacial structures built in the advanced CMOS gate stacks, are highly required. In this paper, several high-resolution electron, ion, and photon-based techniques currently used to characterize the high-k gate dielectrics and interfaces at atomic-scale, are reviewed. Particularly, we critically review the research progress on the characterization of interface behavior and structural evolution in the high-k gate dielectrics by high-resolution transmission electron microscopy （HRTEM） and the related techniques based on scanning transmission electron microscopy （STEM）, including high-angle annular dark- field （HAADF） imaging （also known as Z-contrast imaging）, electron energy-loss spectroscopy （EELS）, and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy （EDS）, due to that HRTEM and STEM have become essential metrology tools for characterizing the dielectric gate stacks in the present and future generations of CMOS devices. In Section 1 of this review, the working principles of each technique are briefly introduced and their key features are outlined. In Section 2, microstructural characterizations of high-k gate dielectrics at atomic-scale by electron microscopy are critically reviewed by citing some recent results reported on high-k gate dielectrics. In Section 3, metal gate electrodes and the interfacial structures between high-k dielectrics and metal gates are discussed. The electron beam damage effects in high-k gate stacks are also evaluated, and their origins and prevention are described in Section 4. Finally, we end this review with personal perspectives towards the future challenges of atomic-scale material characterization in advanced CMOS gate stacks.

Nonlinear Organic Dielectrics for Energy Storage Applications

We present the feasibility study of nonlinear dielectrics for the energy storage applications. Corona deposition of electric charges to the surface of thin films of highly polarizable organic molecules (dielectrophores) shows that the electric field inside the dielectric has a highly nonlinear response. The stored energy densities are superior to the polypropylene films, measured for the comparison, and at least comparable to the current electrochemical batteries. These results make us believe that the dielectrophores-based electrostatic capacitors can revolutionize the energy storage market.

Electrical Properties of Ultra Thin Nitride/Oxynitride Stack Dielectrics pMOS Capacitor with Refractory Metal Gate

Electrical properties of high quality ultra thin nitride/oxynitride(N/O)stack dielectrics pMOS capacitor with refractory metal gate electrode are investigated,and ultra thin (<2 nm) N/O stack gate dielectrics with significant low leakage current and high resistance to boron penetration are fabricated.Experiment results show that the stack gate dielectric of nitride/oxynitride combined with improved sputtered tungsten/titanium nitride (W/TiN) gate electrode is one of the candidates for deep sub-micron metal gate CMOS devices.

Disiloxane-Bridged Cyclopolymer as Polymer Dielectrics

We studied the dielectric properties of organosilicon-containing helical cyclopolymer PbMA which consists of PMMA main chains and tetramethyldisiloxane side rings. PbMA formed films with excellent uniformity through spin-coating onto highly n-doped silicon （n-Si） wafers for constructing devices of dielectric measurements, on which the dielectric properties and I-V characteristics of PbMA were studied. PbMA has a much lower dielectric constant （lower than 2.6） in the frequency range of 10-105 Hz, and better thermal stability than PMMA does. I-V data showed that the metal/PbMA/n-Si devices have different conducting directions, depending on whether Au or Al deposited over PbMA layers.

THE MEASUREMENT OF COMPLEX PERMITTIVITY OF ANISOTROPIC DIELECTRICS BY MEANS OF AN ELECTROMAGNETIC OPEN RESONATOR

By applying the perturbation method and the complex-source-point theory, the theoretical research of measurement of complex permittivity of uniaxial anisotropic materials by means of an electromagnetic open resonator has been made, and the double refraction phenomenon due to anisotropy of measured dielectric materials has been quantitatively analyzed. Finally, measurements have been made on some single-crystal quartz specimens using an automated open resonator measurement system at 8mm band.

Moore-Gibson-Thompson theory for thermoelastic dielectrics

We consider the system of equations determining the linear thermoelastic deformations of dielectrics within the recently called Moore-Gibson-Thompson(MGT)theory.First,we obtain the system of equations for such a case.Second,we consider the case of a rigid solid and show the existence and the exponential decay of solutions.Third,we consider the thermoelastic case and obtain the existence and the stability of the solutions.Exponential decay of solutions in the one-dimensional case is also recalled.

Energy-band alignment of atomic layer deposited(HfO_2)_x(Al_2O_3)_(1-x) gate dielectrics on 4H-SiC

We study a series of（HfO2）x（Al2O3）1-x /4H-SiC MOS capacitors. It is shown that the conduction band offset of HfO2 is 0.5 e V and the conduction band offset of Hf AlO is 1.11–1.72 e V. The conduction band offsets of（Hf O2）x（Al2O3）1-x are increased with the increase of the Al composition, and the（HfO2）x（Al2O3）1-x offer acceptable barrier heights（〉 1 e V）for both electrons and holes. With a higher conduction band offset,（Hf O2）x（Al2O3）1-x/4H-SiC MOS capacitors result in a ～ 3 orders of magnitude lower gate leakage current at an effective electric field of 15 MV/cm and roughly the same effective breakdown field of ～ 25 MV/cm compared to HfO2. Considering the tradeoff among the band gap, the band offset, and the dielectric constant, we conclude that the optimum Al2O3 concentration is about 30% for an alternative gate dielectric in 4H-Si C power MOS-based transistors.

Improved Operation Characteristics for Nonvolatile Charge-Trapping Memory Capacitors with High-κ Dielectrics and SiGe Epitaxial Substrates

A novel high-κ~ A1203/HfO2/AI203 nanolaminate charge trapping memory capacitor structure based on SiGe substrates with low interface densities is successfully fabricated and investigated. The memory capacitor exhibits excellent program-erasable characteristics. A large memory window of ~4 V, a small leakage current density of ~2 ×10-6 Acre-2 at a gate voltage of 7V, a high charge trapping density of 1.42 × 1013 cm-2 at a working vo]tage of 4-10 V and good retention characteristics are observed. Furthermore, the programming （△ VFB = 2.8 V at 10 V for 10μs） and erasing speeds （△VFB =-1.7 V at -10 V for 10μs） of the fabricated capacitor based on SiGe substrates are significantly improved as compared with counterparts reported earlier. It is concluded that the high-κ Al2O3/HfO2/Al2O3 nanolaminate charge trapping capacitor structure based on SiGe substrates is a promising candidate for future nano-scaled nonvolatile flash memory applications.

Nanofiller Dispersion in Polymer Dielectrics

Nanodielectric composites have been developed in recent years attempting to improve the dielectric properties such as dielectric constant, dielectric strength and voltage endurance. Among various investigations, nanoparticle dispersion was particularly emphasized in this work. General Electric Global Research Center in Niskayuna NY USA has investigated various nanoparticles, nanocomposites and nanocomposite synthesis methods intending to understand particle dispersion and their impact on the nanocomposite dielectric properties. The breakdown strength and microstructures of the nanocomposites containing different particles were studied for projects related to capacitor and electrical insulation technologies. The nanocomposite synthesis methods either employed commerical nanoparticles or utilized nanoparticles that were self-assembled (in-situ precipitation) in a matrix. Our investigations have shown that nanocomposites prepared with solution chemistry were more favorable for producing uniform dispersion of nanoparticles. Structural information of nanocomposites was studied with transmission electron microscopy and the interection between particles and matrix polymers were tentatively probed using dielectric spectroscopy. In these new class of materials high energy densities on the order of 15J/cc were achievable in nanocomposites.

Prediction on the relative permittivity of energy storage composite dielectrics using convolutional neural networks:A fast and accurate alternative to finite-element method

The relative permittivity is one of the essential parameters determines the physical polarization behaviors of the nanocomposite dielectrics in many applications,particularly for capacitive energy storage.Predicting the relative permittivity of particle/polymer nanocomposites from the microstructure is of great significance.However,the classical effective medium theory and physics-based numerical calculation represented by finite element method are time-consuming and cumbersome for complex structures and nonlinear problem.The work explores a novel architecture combining the convolutional neural network(ConvNet)and finite element method(FEM)to predict the relative permittivity of nanocomposite dielectrics with incorporated barium titanite(BT)particles in polyvinylidene fluoride(PVDF)matrix.The ConvNet was trained and evaluated on big datasets with 14266 training data and 3514 testing data generated form a programmatic algorithm.Through numerical experiments,we demonstrate that the trained network can efficiently provide an accurate agreement between the ConvNet model and FEM by virtue of the significant evaluation metrics R2,which reaches as high as 0.9783 and 0.9375 on training and testing data,respectively.The strong universality of the presented method allows for an extension to fast and accurately predict other properties of the nanocomposite dielectrics.

A Concept of Absolute Polarization in Dielectrics

It is enunciated in this paper that the volume density of the dipole moment of the induced charges in a dielectric does not in general qualify as a field in terms of which the actual induced charge distribution in the dielectric can he expressed as a volume charge density inside the interior of the dielectric equal to the negative of the divergence of that field and a surface charge density on the boundary of the dielectric equal to the component of that field in the direction of the outward normal to the boundary, unless the induced charge density inside the dielectric vanishes. The field that qualifies to satisfy the second criterion is in the general case named ＂absolute polarization＂, and the interconnection between the two polarizations is established. It is then demonstrated that although a few major equations of linear media electrostatics change, the results for the field of a uniformly polarized object remain unchanged, and all the existing methods of analytical evaluation can be justified if the ＂polarization＂ defined by the first criterion of being a field that equals the volume density of the dipole moment of bound charges is just replaced by the ＂absolute polarization＂, the concept of which is introduced here.

The impact of dielectrics on the electrical capacity, concentration, efficiency ozone generation for the plasma reactor with mesh electrodes

This paper presents experimental results concerning the effect of dielectric type on ozone concentration and the efficiency of its generation in plasma reactor with two mesh electrodes.Three types of dielectric solid were used in the study; glass, micanite and Kapton insulating foil. The experiments were conducted for voltage ranges from 2.3 to 13 k V. A plasma reactor equipped with two 0.3×0.3 mm^2 mesh electrodes made of acid resistant AISI 304 mesh was used in the experiments. The influence of the dielectric type on the concentration and efficiency of ozone generation was described. The resulting maximum concentration of the ozone was about 2.70–9.30 g O3 m^-3, depending on the dielectrics used. The difference between the maximum and the minimum ozone concentration depends on the dielectric used,this accounts for 70% at the variance. The reactor capacity has also been described in the paper; total Ct and dielectric capacitance Cd depending on the dielectric used and its thickness.

Phase control of magnetron sputtering deposited Gd_2O_3 thin films as high-κ gate dielectrics

Gd2O3 thin films as high-κ gate dielectrics were deposited directly on Si（001） substrates by magnetron sputtering at a pressure of 1.3 Pa and different temperatures. X-ray diffraction results revealed that all the films grown from 450 to 570 ℃ were crystalline, and the Gd2O3 thin films consisted of a mixture of cubic and monoclinic phases. The growth temperature was a critical parameter for the phase constituents and their relative amount. Low temperature was favorable for the formation of cubic phase while higher temperature gave rise to more monoclinic phase. All the Gd2O3 thin films grown from different temperatures exhibited acceptable electrical properties, such as low leakage current density （JL） of 10-5 A/cm^2 at zero bias with capacitance equivalent SiO2 thickness in the range of 6-13 nm. Through the comparison between films grown at 450 and 570 ℃, the existence of monoclinic phase caused an increase in JL by nearly one order of magnitude and a reduction of effective dielectric constant from 17 to 9.

The Effect of High Power at Microwave Frequencies on the Linearity of Non-Polar Dielectrics in Space RF component

In satellite communication systems, there are high power multichannel transmitters and wideband receivers that have shared RF antenna transmission lines because of: 1) large power level difference between the transmitted and received signal;2) limited frequency channels. The harmonics and Passive Intermodulation (PIM) Interference will be generated due to passive non-linearities in the high power transmission path. This can be a serious problem. This paper describes how to determine the signal levels and dominant mechanisms that are associated with non-linear dielectric behavior in this context. A novel measurement system for testing dielectric samples is described and measurement results are provided for commonly used microwave dielectrics.

The influence and explanation of fringing-induced barrier lowering on sub-100 nm MOSFETs with high-k gate dielectrics

The fringing-induced barrier lowering（FIBL） effect of sub-100 nm MOSFETs with high-k gate dielectrics is investigated using a two-dimensional device simulator.An equivalent capacitance theory is proposed to explain the physics mechanism of the FIBL effect.The FIBL effect is enhanced and the short channel performance is degraded with increasing capacitance.Based on equivalent capacitance theory,the influences of channel length,junction depth,gate/lightly doped drain（LDD） overlap length,spacer material and spacer width on FIBL is thoroughly investigated.A stack gate dielectric is presented to suppress the FIBL effect.

REFLECTION AND TRANSMISSION OF HARMONIC WAVES AT A PLANE INTERFACE BETWEEN LINEAR AND NONLINEAR DIELECTRICS

The laws of reflection and transmission of harmonic waves at a plane interface between a linear dielectric and a nonlinear dielectric are carefully analyzed. The exact expressions of the reflective and transmissive fields are derived. The further discussions are made to the fields at the conditions of vertical incidence and phase-matching.

Improved performance of back-gate MoS2 transistors by NH3-plasma treating high-k gate dielectrics

NH3-plasma treatment is used to improve the quality of the gate dielectric and interface. Al2O3 is adopted as a buffer layer between HfO2 and MoS2 to decrease the interface-state density. Four groups of MOS capacitors and back-gate transistors with different gate dielectrics are fabricated and their C–V and I–V characteristics are compared. It is found that the Al2O3/HfO2 back-gate transistor with NH3-plasma treatment shows the best electrical performance: high on–off current ratio of 1.53 × 107, higher field-effect mobility of 26.51 cm2/V·s, and lower subthreshold swing of 145 m V/dec.These are attributed to the improvements of the gate dielectric and interface qualities by the NH3-plasma treatment and the addition of Al2O3 as a buffer layer.