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Content archived on 2024-06-18

Clustered Atomic Layer Deposition for Emerging micRoelectonic Applications

Objective

"A less-well known aspect of Moore's law is the need for increased drive current of the transistors. In addition to traditional dimensional scaling, recent work to improve the drive current is increasingly based on alternative materials with higher carrier mobility. When replacing silicon with III-V compound semiconductors as the channel material in CMOS devices, the main problem is the passivation of the interface between the channel and the gate dielectric due to defects created at the III-V surface by the formation of native oxides. It is important to either remove these defects or avoid their formation before the deposition of the gate dielectric to achieve acceptable electronic performance. The most promising gate dielectric for III-V materials is Al2O3 when grown by atomic layer deposition (ALD). Although ALD Al2O3 provides native-oxide-free interfaces with GaAs, the interface defect density is still much larger than on silicon and it is necessary to avoid the oxidation of the surface prior to gate dielectric deposition. Since GaAs has been reported as being deposited epitaxially by ALD, this will be a means to generate defect free surfaces. But to be effective, this must be combined with a clustered deposition of Al2O3 without any air break. The use of in-situ analysis tools in combination with a clustered deposition tool provide an ideal means to study the initial stages of ALD on III-V surfaces and the interface formation since all air exposure will be avoided. In-situ analysis during ALD has been done before, but never with a combination of analysis tools used on the same sample. Since no prior tools combining clustered ALD of both GaAs and Al2O3 and in-situ characterization techniques exist, a major part of the proposed work will be the design and the assembly of a clustered ALD deposition tool. By enabling such a combination, this project will provide the clearest insight into the growth mechanisms of ALD and of III-V interfaces to date."

Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)

Topic(s)

Call for proposal

FP7-PEOPLE-2010-RG
See other projects for this call

Funding Scheme

MC-IRG - International Re-integration Grants (IRG)

Coordinator

INTERUNIVERSITAIR MICRO-ELECTRONICA CENTRUM
EU contribution
€ 50 000,00
Address
KAPELDREEF 75
3001 Leuven
Belgium
Region
Vlaams Gewest Prov. Vlaams-Brabant Arr. Leuven
Activity type
Research Organisations
Links
Total cost
No data