Electrical Properties of Metal-Oxide-Containing SiO 2 Films Formed by Organosiloxane Sol–Gel Precursor

High-quality SiO 2 film formation is important for many applications, such as large-scale integration (LSI) circuit and micro-electro-mechanical system (MEMS) industries. We evaluated the structural and electrical insulation properties of SiO 2 films using an organosiloxane-based silica sol–gel precursor derived from a mixture of tetraethoxysilane (TEOS) and methyltrimethoxysilane (MTMS) by changing the molar ratio of TEOS/MTMS. This sol–gel precursor was converted not only to a low-dielectric-constant film with a relative dielectric constant of 2.8 but also to a dense SiO 2 film by optimizing baking conditions. The dense SiO 2 film from this sol–gel precursor has excellent dielectric characteristics of low leakage current density and high breakdown voltage, whose values are comparable to those of thermal oxide SiO 2 films. Furthermore, the breakdown field intensity of these films was improved by adding a small amount of metal oxides, such as TiO 2 , HfO 2 , and ZrO 2 . A maximum breakdown field intensity of 15 MV/cm can be achieved in the case of 10% TiO 2 addition.