In Situ SiO2 Passivation of Epitaxial (100) and (110)InGaAs by Exploiting TaSiOx Atomic Layer Deposition Process

In this work, an in situ SiO2 passivation technique using atomic layer deposition (ALD) during the growth of gate dielectric TaSiOx on solid-source molecular beam epitaxy grown (100)InxGa1–xAs and (110)InxGa1–xAs on InP substrates is reported. X-ray reciprocal space mapping demonstrated quasi-lattice matched InxGa1–xAs epitaxy on crystallographically oriented InP substrates. Cross-sectional transmission electron microscopy revealed sharp heterointerfaces between ALD TaSiOx and (100) and (110)InxGa1–xAs epilayers, wherein the presence of a consistent growth of an ∼0.8 nm intentionally formed SiO2 interfacial passivating layer (IPL) is also observed on each of (100) and (110)InxGa1–xAs. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) revealed the incorporation of SiO2 in the composite TaSiOx, and valence band offset (ΔEV) values for TaSiOx relative to (100) and (110)InxGa1–xAs orientations of 2.52 ± 0.05 and 2.65 ± 0.05 eV, respectively, were extracted. The conduction band offset (ΔEC) was calculated to be 1.3 ± 0.1 eV for (100)InxGa1–xAs and 1.43 ± 0.1 eV for (110)InxGa1–xAs, using TaSiOx band gap values of 4.60 and 4.82 eV, respectively, determined from the fitted O 1s XPS loss spectra, and the literature-reported composition-dependent InxGa1–xAs band gap. The in situ passivation of InxGa1–xAs using SiO2 IPL during ALD of TaSiOx and the relatively large ΔEV and ΔEC values reported in this work are expected to aid in the future development of thermodynamically stable high-κ gate dielectrics on InxGa1–xAs with reduced gate leakage, particularly under low-power device operation.