Fabricating GeO2 passivation layer by N20 plasma oxidation for Ge NMOSFETs application

In this paper, oxidation of Ge surface by N2O plasma is presented and experimentally demonstrated. Results show that 1.0-nm GeO2 is achieved after 120-s N20 plasma oxidation at 300 ℃. The GeO2/Ge interface is atomically smooth. The interface state density of Ge surface after N20 plasma passivation is about - 3 × 1011 cm-2.eV-1. With GeO2 passivation, the hysteresis of metal-oxide-semiconductor （MOS） capacitor with A1203 serving as gate dielectric is reduced to - 50 mV, compared with - 130 mV of the untreated one. The Fermi-level at GeO2/Ge interface is unpinned, and the surface potential is effectively modulated by the gate voltage.