Si-passivated Ge Gate stacks with low interface state and oxide trap densities using thulium silicate

Ultra-thin epitaxially grown Si layers have been used for Ge surface passivation in CMOS devices utilizing standard silicon SiO2/HfO2 gate stack. In this work, we propose a high-k TmSiO interfacial layer, which has shown excellent performance on Si, instead of the chemical SiO2. We successfully transfer a TmSiO/Tm2O3/HfO2 gate stack from silicon to Si-passivated Ge devices, yielding interface state density of 3·1011 eV-1cm-2, which is comparable to GeOx passivation. Moreover, Si-capped Ge gates with TmSiO interfacial layer achieve significant improvement in oxide trap density compared to GeOx passivation, exhibiting a potential for superior reliability. We further investigate the robustness of Si layer growth process and show that small (±3 °C) variations of growth temperature can be detrimental to the interface state density of the gate stacks.
QC 20201202