A Correlation Between Oxygen Vacancies and Reliability Characteristics in a Single Zirconium Oxide Metal-Insulator-Metal Capacitor

A correlation between reliability characteristics and failure mechanisms for time-dependent dielectric breakdown for a single ZrO2 metal-insulator-metal capacitor has been studied. Frenkel-Poole emission was the dominant mechanism in the high electric field region. The extracted dynamic constant and trap energy level were 4.013 and 0.963 eV, respectively. The variation of α as a function of stress time under constant voltage stress (CVS) gradually decreased. Moreover, ΔCstress/C0 under dynamic voltage stress was much greater than under CVS, which indicates that new defects and charge trapping could be generated in high-κ (HK) dielectric under dynamic voltage stress under negative voltage as well as positive voltage. The extracted average value of the Weibull slope (β) at 125°C was in the range 1.3-1.6. The average field acceleration parameter was ~8.67 cm/MV, and an effective dipole moment of bond breakage peff was ~29.73e Å. The thermochemical model (E model) suggested that the oxygen vacancies induced by the dipolar energy contribution (p · Eloc) easily caused bond breakage in the HK dielectric. The energy required to form another V0 was weakened to the bond strength of polar molecules. The characteristic breakdown strength (EBD) of ZrO2 was 6.31 MV/cm, and the extracted activation energy AH0* was 1.874 eV when considering E model.

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