Chemical states and electrical properties of a high-k metal oxide/silicon interface with oxygen-gettering titanium-metal-overlayer

The authors report on the chemical bonding structure of the HfO2∕Si (001) stack after the SiO2 interfacial layer (IL) is partially removed by a reactive titanium metal overlayer. Using synchrotron photoelectron spectroscopy, they found that ultrathin SiO2-like IL ∼6.5Å thick, which is significantly less than the initial SiO2 IL thickness of ∼15Å, exists at the HfO2∕Si interface with an overlying Ti electrode. The dissociated Si from SiO2 IL is believed to go onto Si substrate where it regrows epitaxially. The interfacial trap density of the Ti-electrode sample was extracted to be ∼1.6×1011eV−1cm−2 near the midgap of Si, which was comparable to that of the control sample with W electrode.