Growth and characterization of ultrathin nitrided silicon oxide films
by E. P. Gusev, H.-C. Lu, E. L. Garfunkel, T. Gustafsson, M. L. Green
This paper reviews recent progress in understanding microstructural and growth-mechanistic aspects of ultrathin (<4 nm) oxynitride films for gate dielectric applications. Different techniques for characterizing these films are summarized. We discuss several nitridation methods, including thermal (oxy)nitridation in NO, N2O, and N2 as well as a variety of deposition methods. We show that a basic understanding of the gas-phase and thin-film oxygen and nitrogen incorporation chemistries facilitates the processing of layered oxynitride nanostructures with desirable electrical properties.
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