Extension of Far UV spectroscopic ellipsometry studies of High-κ dielectric films to 130 nm

Next generation CMOS devices use a high-kappa dielectric layer (HfO2, HfSiO, HfSiON and La2O3) grown on thin interfacial silicon dioxide as the gate dielectric. The higher dielectric constant of the Hf oxide based film stack allows a decrease in equivalent oxide thickness (EOT). Because the high-kappa film stack has a greater physical thickness than an electrically equivalent SiO2 film, the tunneling current decreases. It is a critical metrology requirement to measure the thickness of silicon dioxide and high-kappa film stacks. Spectroscopic ellipsometry (SE) in the far UV wavelength region can be used to differentiate the high-kappa films from silicon dioxide. This is due to the non-zero nature of the imaginary part of the dielectric function (beyond 6 eV) in the far UV region for high-kappa films. There has been some conjecture that optical studies should be extended beyond 150 nm further into the VUV. This study addresses these concerns through determination of the dielectric function down to 130 nm. We show the fitted dielectric function of hafnium silicates and lanthanum oxide down to 130 nm. X-ray reflectivity (XRR) measurements were also performed on the high-kappa films to complement the thickness measurements performed with SE. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.