Dielectric Enhancement of Atomic Layer-Deposited Al2O3/ZrO2/Al2O3 MIM Capacitors by Microwave Annealing

For metal-insulator-metal (MIM) capacitors applicated in the fields of RF, DRAM, and analog/mixed-signal integrated circuits, a high capacitance density is imperative with the downscaling of the device feature size. In this work, the microwave annealing technique is investigated to enhance the dielectric characteristics of Al 2 O 3 /ZrO 2 /Al 2 O 3 based MIM capacitors. The results show that the permittivity of ZrO 2 is increased to 41.9 (~ 40% enhanced) with a microwave annealing at 1400 W for 5 min. The substrate temperature is lower than 400 °C, which is compatible with the back end of line process. The leakage current densities are 1.23 × 10 −8 and 1.36 × 10 −8 A/cm 2 for as-deposited sample and 1400 W sample, respectively, indicating that the leakage property is not deteriorated. The conduction mechanism is confirmed as field-assisted tunneling.