212th ECS Meeting, Abstract #990, © The Electrochemical Society Nanomechanical Properties of High-k dielectrics grown by Atomic Layer Deposition

Over the last decades continued physical scaling of gate stack materials has been crucial for the performance enhancement of modern CMOS logic devices. Due to the challenges of increased gate leakage currents and oxide breakdown beyond the 45nm node, the demise of conventional SiO2 based gate dielectrics has been predicted for a long time. This and a diminishing rate of gate stack scaling have revived the interest in the development of alternate high dielectric constant k materials. High-k materials such as hafnium oxide, zirconium oxide and aluminum oxide are being intensively studied. Hafnium based oxides have proven themselves to be good candidates for semiconductor processing. However, above 700 oC, crystallization of HfO2 has been observed (1). Mixing hafnium with nitrid