Titanium-added praseodymium silicate high- k layers on Si(001)

Titanium-added praseodymium silicate layers on Si(001) are promising high- k insulators for silicon-based nanoelectronic devices. Synchrotron radiation x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy was applied to study the effect of titanium additives on the praseodymium silicate/Si system. Nondestructive depth profiling by variation of the photon energy shows that thermal annealing activates the diffusion of deposited titanium into the praseodymium silicate. A homogeneous praseodymium titanium silicate layer is formed that shows high-quality electrical properties.