Determination of energy barrier profiles for high-k dielectric materials utilizing bias-dependent internal photoemission

We utilize bias-dependent internal photoemission spectroscopy to determine the metal/dielectric/silicon energy barrier profiles for Au/HfO2/Si and Au/Al2O3/Si structures. The results indicate that the applied voltage plays a large role in determining the effective barrier height and we attribute much of the variation in this case to image potential barrier lowering in measurements of single layers. By measuring current at both positive and negative voltages, we are able to measure the band offsets from Si and also to determine the flatband voltage and the barrier asymmetry at 0 V. Our SiO2 calibration sample yielded a conduction band offset value of 3.03+/-0.1 eV. Measurements on HfO2 give a conduction band offset value of 2.7+/-0.2 eV (at 1.0 V) and Al2O3 gives an offset of 3.3+/-0.1 (at 1.0 V). We believe that interfacial SiO2 layers may dominate the electron transport from silicon for these films. The Au/HfO2 barrier height was found to be 3.6+/-0.1 eV while the Au/Al2O3 barrier is 3.5+/-0.1 eV.

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