Soft breakdown in irradiated high-K nanolaminates

F. PALUMBO; C. QUINTEROS; F. CAMPABADAL; J. M. RAFÍ; M. ZABALA; E. MIRANDA

Grenoble

Conferencia; Conference on Insulating Films on Semiconductors; 2011

Al2O3/HfO2-based multilayer stacks seem to be an appropriate choice as alternative gate dielectrics in advanced MOS devices since it is expected that those stacks combine the main features of their individual components: large band gap in the case of Al2O3 and high dielectric constant in the case of HfO2. However, even though the effects of ion strikes on the separate materials have been thoroughly investigated in the past [1], to the best of our knowledge, no report is available concerning the susceptibility of these nanolaminate stacks when subjected to such extreme degradation condition. This is a critical issue for space applications in which the reliability of the gate stack is of utmost importance. In this paper, we present experimental results showing the effects of high-energy ion irradiation (25MeV 16O and 10MeV protons) on the conduction characteristics of high-k nanolaminate structures.