Characteristics of Silicon Oxide Thin Film Deposited via Remote Plasma Atomic Layer Deposition

Recently, high-quality SiO 2 thin films deposited at low temperatures have become popular because of their excellent dielectric properties. In this study, SiO 2 thin films were deposited through remote plasma atomic layer deposition (RPALD) using a bis(tertiary-butylamino)silane (BTBAS) precursor and O 2 plasma. The growth rate was saturated at 1.0 Å/cycle between 300 °C and 400 °C and was maintained throughout the process. The SiO 2 thin film was oxygen rich according to Auger electron spectroscopy (AES), and the Si–O–Si bond structure was analyzed by measuring the binding energy differences using X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). The leakage current density was 2.0 × 10–7 A cm −2 at 2 MV cm −1 . As the deposition temperature increased from 300 °C to 400 °C, the breakdown voltage increased from 8.5 MV cm −1 to 10.5 MV cm −1 and the dielectric constant decreased from 3.85 to 3.72, which is slightly lower than for typical SiO 2 .