Physical and chemical constraints on the application of rapid thermal processing to the deposition and post-deposition processing of alternative high-k gate dielectrics

This paper discusses the amorphous morphology and electronic structure of elemental and binary oxides that have been proposed as alternative gate dielectrics for advanced Si CMOS devices. Based on fundamental aspects of amorphous morphology and electronic structure, binary alloys comprised of transition metal and rare earth oxides such as Zr(Hf)O₂ and Y(Gd)₂O₃, and either SiO₂ or Al₂O₃ are identified as leading contenders for the first generation of advanced replacement dielectrics. This paper also addresses issues relative to deposition of these materials and their integration into CMOS devices.