Effect of annealing on the structural and electrical properties of high- k Sm2 O3 dielectrics

In this paper, the authors report a high- k samarium oxide (Sm2 O3) dielectric grown on the silicon substrate by reactive sputtering. We find that the Sm2 O3 gate dielectric after annealing at 700°C exhibits excellent electrical properties such as small equivalent oxide thickness, gate leakage current, frequency dispersion, and stress-induced leakage current. This indicates that annealing at 700°C treatment can prevent the interfacial layer formation, improve the surface roughness, and passivate a large amount of trapped charge at defect sites.