Interfacial and structural characteristics of CeO films on silicon with a nitrided interface formed by nitrogen-ion-beam bombardment

Effects of post‐deposition annealing of cerium oxide passivation layer in nitrogen‐oxygen‐nitrogen ambient

“…24 Although eradicating the formation of interfacial layer would be very challenging, previous studies reported about the enhancement in breakdown voltage and leakage current due to the interfacial layer formation coupled with an acceptable interface quality between CeO 2 passivation layer and Si substrate. 9,18,[25][26][27] These discrepancies denoted that the feasibility of impeding the formation of interfacial layer while preserving a sufficiently good interface quality between CeO 2 passivation layer and Si substrate has yet to be unearthed.…”

“…Another versatility of CeO 2 phase in transforming from oxidizing (Ce 4+ ) to reducing (Ce 3+ ) state has attracted its employment in catalytic applications but this feature was deemed to result in detrimental effect towards the passivating properties of CeO 2 layer 23 caused by the formation of low k SiO 2 interfacial layer, of which its presence would ultimately reduce the overall k value of the device 24 . Although eradicating the formation of interfacial layer would be very challenging, previous studies reported about the enhancement in breakdown voltage and leakage current due to the interfacial layer formation coupled with an acceptable interface quality between CeO 2 passivation layer and Si substrate 9,18,25‐27 . These discrepancies denoted that the feasibility of impeding the formation of interfacial layer while preserving a sufficiently good interface quality between CeO 2 passivation layer and Si substrate has yet to be unearthed.…”

A review on potential use of cerium oxide and doped cerium oxide as high dielectric constant seed layers for overgrowth of cerium oxide nanostructures

“…King et al (2011) [111] achieved a leakage current density (J) of (∼7.4 × 10 −4 A cm −2 at 2.2 V) for atomic layer deposited CeO 2 with a 1.6 nm thick SiO 2 interfacial layer at the CeO 2 /Si interface. Kang et al (2002) [112] demonstrated that the pulsed laser deposited CeO 2 /Si with a SiN x O y interfacial layer prevented the formation of SiO 2 at the CeO 2 /Si interface and improved J (∼10 −3 A cm −2 ) compared to the one without SiN x O y interfacial layer (∼10 −2 A cm −2 at 2 V), which was post-deposition annealed in argon and oxygen ambient. Quah et al (2010) [10] also showed improvement in J (∼10 −8 A cm −2 at 1.5 V).…”