Characteristics and mechanism of tunable work function gate electrodes using a bilayer metal structure on SiO2 and HfO2

In this letter, we investigate a method to adjust the gate work function of an MOS structure by stacking two metals with different work functions. This method can provide work function tunability of approximately 1 eV as the bottom metal layer thickness is increased from 0 to about 10 nm. This behavior is demonstrated with different metal combinations on both SiO₂ and HfO₂ gate dielectrics. We use capacitance-voltage (C-V) characteristics to investigate the effect of different annealing conditions and different metal/metal bilayer couples on the work function. By comparing the as-deposited and annealed films, and by comparing with metals that are relatively inert with each other, we deduce that the work function tuning behavior likely involves metal/metal interdiffusion.