ChemInform Abstract: Electrically Detected Magnetic Resonance in Dielectric Semiconductor Systems of Current Interest

There is significant interest in the development of new dielectrics and new semiconductor/dielectric systems. Of particular interest are new materials for metal oxide field effect transistor systems and new materials for interlayer dielectrics. The electronic defects which limit the performance of these new material systems are largely unknown. Electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) has unrivaled analytical power for the identification of the physical and chemical nature of trapping centers in semiconductors and insulators (1). However, the sensitivity of conventional EPR is orders of magnitude too low to make measurements in most present day solid state devices. Two electrically detected magnetic resonance (EDMR) techniques, spin dependent recombination (SDR) and spin dependent trap assisted tunneling (SDT) provide the same analytical power as conventional EPR but, in addition, offer a sensitivity many orders of magnitude higher. This enhanced sensitivity allows measurements to be made in essentially “state of the art” device structures and provide several other significant advantages. EDMR can, under some circumstances, provide information about the physical location and energy levels of deep level defects which play important roles in electronic devices. In this presentation, I’ll discuss EDMR results on low-K dielectric constant films (2), on high-K dielectric films on silicon (3), on near interface/interface traps in SiC MOSFET gate dielectrics (4), on defects which play dominating roles in stress induced leakage currents (5) and the negative bias temperature instability (6) in essentially “state of the art” plasma nitrided oxides in silicon based pMOSFETs. I will also show how energy resolved SDT can provide fairly precise measurements of dielectric defect energy levels and show how the SDR response as a function of gate voltage can provide qualitative information about the physical distribution of interface/near interface defects. ACKNOWLDEGEMENTS Work supported by Intel Corporation, U.S. Army Research Laboratory, GE Global Research, and NIST.