Study of Lanthanum incorporated HfO2 nano-scale high-κ dielectric using Pulse Laser Deposition for metal–insulator–metal capacitor applications

Studies of Metal–insulator–metal (MIM) capacitors having high-κ La2O3\HfO2 dielectric stacks are fabricated using Pulse Laser Deposition (PLD) is carried out. Nano-sized La2O3\HfO2 dielectric stacks are deposited using PLD system under optimized pressure, substrate temperature and numbers of shots inside argon ambient chamber. The morphology of dielectric stacks is examined using AFM and the thickness of the film is examined using an ellipsometer. The elemental composition of the dielectric film was characterized using X-ray diffraction. The electrical property of the dielectric stacks was investigated employing Al-HfO2\La2O3–Al-Si MIM capacitor structure. Fabricated MIM capacitors are characterized for the determination of capacitance density, dielectric constant and leakage current density for lanthanum incorporation. It can be seen that Lanthanum incorporation in HfO2 based dielectric stacks has relatively higher capacitance, higher dielectric constant and lower leakage current which makes it one of the most promising candidates for next generation metal–insulator–metal capacitor applications.