Effects of dielectric structure of HfO2 on carrier generation rate in Si substrate and channel mobility

This letter presents the effects of surface preparation for hafnium-based dielectrics on the bulk carrier generation rates and the carrier mobility. Different surface preparations result in different interfacial layers. Nitrogen-incorporated layers effectively block impurity penetration from hafnium oxide, and lead to the increase of bulk carrier generation lifetime. However, nitrogen-incorporated interface layers increase interface state density and degrade channel mobility, even though bulk carrier generation lifetime is increased. Thus, mobility degradation is preliminarily caused by fixed charge and interface states of the high-k dielectrics.