Water assisted atomic layer deposition of yttrium oxide using tris(N,N0-diisopropyl-2-dimethylamido-guanidinato) yttrium(III): Process development, film characterization and functional properties†

Abstract

We report a new atomic layer deposition (ALD) process for yttrium oxide (Y2O3) thin films using tris(N,N0-diisopropyl-2-dimethylamido-guanidinato) yttrium(III) [Y(DPDMG)3] which possesses an optimal reactivity towards water that enabled the growth of high quality thin films. Saturative behavior of the precursor and a constant growth rate of 1.1 Å per cycle confirm the characteristic self-limiting ALD growth in a temperature range from 175 C to 250 C. The polycrystalline films in the cubic phase are uniform and smooth with a root mean squared (RMS) roughness of 0.55 nm, while the O/Y ratio of 2.0 reveal oxygen rich layers with low carbon contaminations of around 2 at%. Optical properties determined via UV/Vis measurements revealed the direct optical band gap of 5.56 eV. The valuable intrinsic properties such as a high dielectric constant make Y2O3 a promising candidate in microelectronic applications. Thus the electrical characteristics of the ALD grown layers embedded in a metal insulator semiconductor (MIS) capacitor structure were determined which resulted in a dielectric permittivity of 11, low leakage current density (z107 A cm2 at 2 MV cm1) and high electrical breakdown fields (4.0–7.5 MV cm1). These promising results demonstrate the potential of the new and simple Y2O3 ALD process for gate oxide applications.