Characteristics improvement and carrier transportation of CeO2 gate dielectrics with rapid thermal annealing

In this paper, we have investigated the properties and carrier transportation of ultra-thin cerium dioxide films with rapid thermal annealing. Improved characteristics such as low leakage current, high breakdown voltage and large time-dependent-dielectric-breakdown (TDDB) are obtained owing to the more stoichiometric quality of the CeO₂ films after high temperature annealing. Moreover, temperature dependence of gate leakage current under substrate injection is studied, and the carrier conduction mechanisms, including the Frenkel-Poole (F-P) conduction and the Fowler-Nordheim (F-N) tunneling are also proposed, from which we have deduced the energy band diagram of Al/CeO₂/n-Si structure for the first time.