Plasma Enhanced Atomic Layer Deposition of ZrO 2 : A Thermodynamic Approach

In the pursuit of smaller and faster devices manufacture, integration of new materials exhibiting a high dielectric permittivity is going on to replace silicon oxide SiO2 in Metal/Insulator/Metal (MIM) capacitors and in Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM). Among these materials, the zirconium oxide, ZrO2, in its highest dielectric permittivity phase (the high temperature tetragonal one) is investigated. Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD) of out-of-equilibrium ZrO2 thin films in 3D architectures is explored using various approaches: evaluation of the zirconium gaseous precursor, influence of operating conditions, thermal behavior of the deposited films. Thermodynamic models are used to better understand the film growth.