Ge interface engineering using ultra-thin La2O3 and Y2O3 films: A study into the effect of deposition temperature

A study into the optimal deposition temperature for ultra-thin La2O3/Ge and Y2O3/Ge gate stacks has been conducted in this paper with the aim to tailor the interfacial layer for effective passivation of the Ge interface. A detailed comparison between the two lanthanide oxides (La2O3 and Y2O3) in terms of band line-up, interfacial features, and reactivity to Ge using medium energy ion scattering, vacuum ultra-violet variable angle spectroscopic ellipsometry (VUV-VASE), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, and X-ray diffraction is shown. La2O3 has been found to be more reactive to Ge than Y2O3, forming LaGeOx and a Ge sub-oxide at the interface for all deposition temperature studied, in the range from 44 degrees C to 400 degrees C. In contrast, Y2O3/Ge deposited at 400 degrees C allows for an ultra-thin GeO2 layer at the interface, which can be eliminated during annealing at temperatures higher than 525 degrees C leaving a pristine YGeOx/Ge interface. The Y2O3/Ge gate stack deposited at lower temperature shows a sub-band gap absorption feature fitted to an Urbach tail of energy 1.1 eV. The latter correlates to a sub-stoichiometric germanium oxide layer at the interface. The optical band gap for the Y2O3/Ge stacks has been estimated to be 5.7 +/- 0.1 eV from Tauc-Lorentz modelling of VUV-VASE experimental data. For the optimal deposition temperature (400 degrees C), the Y2O3/Ge stack exhibits a higher conduction band offset (>2.3 eV) than the La2O3/Ge (similar to 2 eV), has a larger band gap (by about 0.3 eV), a germanium sub-oxide free interface, and leakage current (similar to 10(-7) A/cm(2) at 1V) five orders of magnitude lower than the respective La2O3/Ge stack. Our study strongly points to the superiority of the Y2O3/Ge system for germanium interface engineering to achieve high performance Ge Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor technology. (C) 2014 AIP Publishing LLC.