Maximized benefit of LaAlO higher-κ gate dielectrics by optimizing the La/Al atomic ratio

The benefit of LaAlO higher-κ gate dielectrics is maximized by optimizing the Al/(La+Al) atomic ratio. The Al/(La+Al) atomic ratio modulates the band gap, dielectric constant, and interface dipoles, resulting in change of energy band alignment. The LaAlO film with an Al/(La+Al) atomic ratio of 0.25 yields a maximum leakage current reduction exceeding HfO2 and La 2O3, owing to the optimized band alignment structure. Moreover, a SiON underlayer instead of SiO2 enables additional equivalent oxide thickness scaling down to 7.4 while maintaining the fully reduced leakage current with a gate-first process. © 2006 IEEE.