Gate-All-Around Silicon Nanowire MOSFETs: Top-down Fabrication and Transport Enhancement Techniques

By

Pouya Hashemi

B.Sc., Electrical Engineering, University of Tehran 2003

M.Sc., Electrical Engineering, University of Tehran 2005

Submitted to the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

Doctor of Philosophy in Electrical Engineering

at the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

September 2010

© 2010 Massachusetts Institute of Technology All rights reserved

Signature of Author ______________________________________________________________

Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science September 3, 2010

Certified by _____________________________________________________________________

Judy L. Hoyt Professor of Electrical Engineering

Thesis Supervisor

Accepted by ____________________________________________________________________ Terry P. Orlando

Professor of Electrical Engineering Chair, Department Committee on graduate Students

Gate-All-Around Silicon Nanowire MOSFETs: Top-down Fabrication and Transport Enhancement Techniques

By

Pouya Hashemi

Submitted to the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science on September 3rd, 2010 in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree

of Doctor of Philosophy in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

Abstract

Scaling MOSFETs beyond 15 nm gate lengths is extremely challenging using a planar device architecture due to the stringent criteria required for the transistor switching. The top-down fabricated, gate-all-around architecture with a Si nanowire channel is a promising candidate for future technology generations. The gate-all-around geometry enhances the electrostatic control and hence gate length scalability. In addition, it enables use of an undoped channel, which has the potential to minimize threshold voltage variation due to reduced random dopant fluctuations. However, there is little known about carrier mobility in Si nanowire MOSFETs. Because of the different crystal surface orientations, the nanowire sidewalls are expected to influence carrier transport. In addition, sidewall roughness due to non-ideal lithography and etch processes can degrade the carrier transport. Technological performance boosters are thus required to enhance electron and hole transport. Uniaxial strain engineering and maskless hydrogen thermal annealing are investigated in this thesis to enhance carrier mobility in gate-all-around nanowire MOSFETs. Uniaxial tensile stress of about 2 GPa was incorporated for the first time into suspended Si nanowire channels by a novel lateral relaxation and suspension technique. Gate-all-around strained-Si nanowire n-MOSFETs were fabricated with nanowire widths in the range of 8 to 50 nm and 8 nm body thickness, demonstrating near ideal sub-threshold swing and an enhancement in long-channel current drive and transconductance of approximately 2X for strained-Si nanowires compared to control Si nanowires. Low-field effective mobility of these devices was extracted using split capacitance-voltage measurements and the two-FET method. The analysis indicates electron mobility enhancement for strained-Si nanowires over their unstrained Si counterparts, as well as over planar SOI, specifically at high inversion charge densities. However, the mobility of these nanowires was shown to decrease with decreasing nanowire width, consistent with reported data on unstrained Si nanowires. A simple analytical model was developed to investigate the contribution of the sidewalls to the nanowire width dependence of the electron mobility. A new design and process technology was developed to accurately investigate the hole mobility of gate-all-around Si nanowires. A conformal high-κ/metal gate process, enabling uniform gating of the nanowire perimeter, was combined with a maskless hydrogen thermal anneal to reduce sidewall roughness scattering. Using this optimized process, long-channel devices with ideal sub-threshold swing (~60 mV/dec) and enhanced current drive were demonstrated, indicating the excellent quality of the nanowire/high-κ interface and low-roughness sidewalls. Capacitance-voltage characteristics of sub-micron-long Si nanowires were accurately measured and verified by quantum-mechanical simulations. Increased effective hole mobility with decreasing nanowire width was observed down to 12 nm for hydrogen annealed nanowires, attributed to the smooth, high-mobility non-(100) sidewalls. Thesis Supervisor: Judy L. Hoyt Title: Professor of Electrical Engineering

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To my dear mother, Azam Yazdani, for all her love and dedication

ش کار دا ق و مام ای ی ، دا م م ، ا م ما قد To my kind aunt, Sima Yazdani, for all the invaluable guidance and

instruction, toward this end and throughout my life

ی وزش ی و آ ما ه را ای ھ ی ، دا ما م ، با م خا قد ن یز د ر را دف و ن ق ا ر ھا ا

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Acknowledgments

First of all, I would like to express my sincere respect and deepest gratitude to my principal

research supervisor, Prof. Judy L. Hoyt. During the past five years, Judy was the most influential

person to me. She generously helped me in all the ups and downs I encountered in my research and

student life at MIT. She patiently followed every single step of all my experiments and helped me

troubleshoot the process failures and technical difficulties. I would also like to thank Prof. Dimitri

Antoniadis, for all the technical support and helpful discussions on various projects. In fact, I

learned so much from his extensive experience in semiconductor devices and his deep insight to

the device physics. I’d also like to thank Prof. Tomás Palacios for contributing to and enhancing

the quality of this thesis.

The financial support by the FCRP Materials, Structures, and Devices Focus Center and IBM

Ph.D. Fellowship program is acknowledged. I had a great opportunity to discuss to and get

feedback from many professors and industrial directors through annual reviews and teleseminars.

Over the past five years, I was honored to work and collaborate with many outstanding

students, scientists and research staffs members at various universities and industries. Dr. Michael

Canonico of Freescale and Dr. Christian D. Poweleit of ASU are greatly acknowledged for the

Raman and XRD measurements. I would like to thank Mark Mondol, Joel K.W. Yang and Prof.

Karl K. Berggren for spending many hours with me to develop and improve the quality of e-beam

lithography. Dr. Leonardo Gomez , Gary Riggott and Meekyung Kim are highly acknowledged for

helping me with the epitaxial growth and substrate preparation and analysis. Special thanks to Dr.

Leonardo Gomez for being a great officemate and a trustworthy friend. Many thanks to James T.

Teherani who helped me with the device simulations and being a nice friend during my summer

internship at IBM.

Moving this project forward was not possible without assistance and guidance of many staffs at

MIT Microsystems Technology Laboratories who helped me bringing new materials and processes

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to the Integrated Circuits Lab. I would like to acknowledge Vicky Diadiuk, Paul Tierney, Bernard

Alamariu, Eric S. Lim, Robert Bicchieri, Donal Jamieson, Paudely Zamora, Dan Adams, Kurt

Broderick, and Dennis Ward for trainings and troubleshooting the machines. I am thankful to my

fellow lab members past and present: Dr. Hyung-Seok Lee, Dr. Ingvar Åberg, Dr. Ali Khakifirooz,

Dr. John Hennessy, Dr. Osamah Naygeh, Dr. Andrew Ritenour, Nicole Dilello, Dr. Kevin Ryu, Dr.

Jongwoo Joh, Will Chung, Dr. Daehyun Kim, Dr. Luis Fernando Velásquez-García, Stephen A.

Guerrera, Bin Lu, Omair Saadat, Dr. Jae-kyu Lee, Dr. Ryan Lei, Kevin McComber, Jing Cheng

and Jerome Jianqiang Lin. I acknowledge them for valuable conversations and assisting me with

design of new processes. Special thanks to Leo, Will, Jing, Kevin, Jerome, Kevin, Bin and Joel for

being my lab buddy on weekends and after hours.

I would also like to express my gratitude to Judy’s assistants in the past and present: Rose

Previte, Michele Hudak, and Whitney Rokui. They were great help with administrative tasks. I

would also like to acknowledge the MTL’s administrative staffs and specialists: Deborah Hodges-

Pabon, Pat Varley, Samuel Crooks, Mara Karapetian, and Michael McIlrath. I am also thankful to

the staffs at Department of Material Science and Engineering of MIT: Dr. Yong Zhang, for training

me on TEM and SEM, Libby Shaw for training me on AFM and Dr. S. J. Chen for training me on

the new FIB machine.

I am truly indebted and thankful to my former research Supervisor, Prof. Shams Mohajerzadeh

who motivated me with the world-class research in the field of microelectronic devices. I would

like to show my gratitude to Dr. Ghavam G. Shahidi, Dr. Devendra Sadana, and Dr. Davood

Shahrjerdi for mentoring and supporting me with the industrial research at IBM.

I am heartily thankful to my mother for all her love and dedication and my aunt, for all the

invaluable guidance and instruction, toward this end and throughout my life. My siblings Kousha

and Dena for continuous love and encouragement. Special thanks to my uncles, Dr. Ali and Akbar

Yazdani for all the generous financial and mental supports throughout my life. Finally, I’d like to

thank my love, Azadeh, for bringing happiness to my life and for all the wonderful moments we

had together during the past year.

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Contents

List of Figures...................................................................................................................................... 13

List of Tables ....................................................................................................................................... 25

Chapter 1: Introduction ................................................................................................................... 27

1.1 Thesis Introduction and Motivation ....................................................................................... 27

1.2 Thesis Outline ......................................................................................................................... 31

Chapter 2: Thesis Background ........................................................................................................ 33

2.1 Introduction to Multi-Gate Devices ....................................................................................... 33

2.2 Scaling Theory of MOSFETs and Advantages of Nanowires .............................................. 36

2.3 Carrier Transport and Scattering Mechanisms....................................................................... 40

2.3.1 Mobility and Velocity ............................................................................................. 40

2.3.2 Scattering Mechanisms ........................................................................................... 43

2.3.2.1 Coulombic Scattering .............................................................................. 44

2.3.2.2 Surface Roughness Scattering ................................................................ 45

2.3.2.3 Phonon Scattering and Confinement ....................................................... 46

2.3.2.4 Thickness Fluctuation Scattering ............................................................ 50

2.3.2.5 Remote Phonon Scattering ...................................................................... 51

2.4 Transport Enhancements Options for Multi-gate MOSFETs ................................................ 54

2.4.1 Surface Crystallographic Orientation and Channel Direction ............................... 54

2.4.2 Strain Engineering ................................................................................................... 57

2.4.3 Technological Implementation: New Materials and Processes ............................. 61

2.5 Mobility Extraction for Gate-All-Around Nanowires MOSFETs ........................................ 63

2.6 Chapter Summary ................................................................................................................... 70

Chapter 3: Asymmetrically Strained-Si and Ge Channels .......................................................... 73

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3.1 Biaxial to Uniaxial Strain Transformation ............................................................................. 73

3.2 Asymmetrically Strained-Ge Nano-Bars ............................................................................... 75

3.2.1 Fabrication and Metrology ...................................................................................... 75

3.2.2 Strain Characterization ............................................................................................ 76

3.3 Suspended Uniaxially Strained-Si Nanowires ....................................................................... 79

3.3.1 Fabrication of Strained-Si Nanowires .................................................................... 79

3.3.2 Raman Characterization and Stress Mapping......................................................... 80

3.3.3 Vertically-Stacked Strained-Si Nanowires ............................................................. 85

3.4 Chapter Summary ................................................................................................................... 88

Chapter 4: Gate-All-Around Uniaxially Strained-Si Nanowire n-MOSFETs .......................... 89

4.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................................. 89

4.2 Device fabrication and Metrology .......................................................................................... 90

4.3 Electrostatics and Threshold voltage ...................................................................................... 93

4.4 Performance Evaluation .......................................................................................................... 96

4.5 Mobility Characterization ....................................................................................................... 99

4.5.1 Split CV Measurements .......................................................................................... 99

4.5.2 Electron Mobility .................................................................................................. 102

4.5.3 Width Dependence of Electron Mobility .............................................................. 104

4.5 Chapter Summary ................................................................................................................. 109

Chapter 5: Device Design and Process Technology for Gate-All-Around Si Nanowire p-

MOSFETs ......................................................................................................................................... 111

5.1 Introduction ........................................................................................................................... 111

5.2 Device Design for Accurate Mobility Extraction ................................................................ 112

5.3 Hydrogen Anneal Process .................................................................................................... 117

5.4 High-κ/Metal Gate Process ................................................................................................... 122

5.4.1 ALD Al2O3/WN Stack with O3 Surface Passivation ........................................... 123

5.4.2 Planar SOI Mobility .............................................................................................. 125

5.4.3 Tungsten Nitride (WN) Workfunction ................................................................. 126

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5.5 Chapter Summary ................................................................................................................. 127

Chapter 6: Hole Transport in Gate-All-Around Si Nanowire p-MOSFETs ........................... 129

6.1 Introduction and Process Splits ............................................................................................ 129

6.2 Device Characteristics .......................................................................................................... 130

6.2.1 Drain Current and Electrostatics ........................................................................... 130

6.2.2 Performance Enhancement by Hydrogen Anneal ................................................ 132

6.3 Hole Mobility Characterization ............................................................................................ 134

6.3.1 Capacitance Measurements and Mobility Extraction .......................................... 134

6.3.2 Charge Distribution and Capacitance Simulations .............................................. 135

6.3.3 Hole Mobility Investigation .................................................................................. 138

6.3.3.1 Nanowires without Hydrogen Anneal ................................................... 139

6.3.3.2 Nanowires with Optimized Hydrogen Anneal (Condition B) .............. 140

6.3.3.3 Nanowires with Non-Optimized hydrogen Anneal (Condition C) ...... 143

6.3.4 Width Dependence of Hole Mobility ................................................................... 144

6.4 Chapter Summary ................................................................................................................. 148

Chapter 7: Summary and Suggestions for Future Work ........................................................... 151

7.1 Thesis Summary .................................................................................................................... 151

7.2 Suggestions for Future Work ................................................................................................ 155

7.3 Contributions ......................................................................................................................... 156

Appendix A: E-beam Lithography with Hydrogen Silsesquioxane Negative-Tone Resist .... 157

A.1 Hydrogen Silsesquioxane Negative-Tone Resist ................................................................ 157

A.2 Hybrid Lithography ............................................................................................................. 162

A.3 Fabrication Process for Ultra-Dense Si Nanowires ............................................................ 164

Appendix B: Raman Spectroscopy of Strained-Si Nanowires .................................................. 167

B.1 Raman Characterization of Suspended Nanowires ............................................................. 167

B.2 Raman Characterization of Ultra-Dense Strained-Si Nanowires ....................................... 169

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Appendix C: Fabrication Flow and Stress Characterization of Vertically-Stacked Strained-Si

Nanowires ......................................................................................................................................... 173

C.1 Starting Substrates ................................................................................................................ 173

C.2 Fabrication Steps .................................................................................................................. 176

Appendix D: Process Flow for Gate-All-Around Si (Strained-Si) Nanowire n-MOSFETs .. 177

D.1 Fabrication Flow .................................................................................................................. 177

D.2 Gate-Alignment and Stringer Etch ...................................................................................... 180

Appendix E: Process Flow for Gate-All-Around Si Nanowire p-MOSFETs with High-

κ/Metal Gate Process ...................................................................................................................... 183

E.1 Fabrication Flow ................................................................................................................... 183

E.2 Polycrystalline-Si/WN Gate Stack ....................................................................................... 186

Appendix F: Si/Ge Core-Shell Nanowire p-MOSFETs .............................................................. 189

F.1 Fabrication of Si/Ge Core-Shell Nanowire p-MOSFETs.................................................... 189

F.2 Electrical Characterization and Mobility Calculation ......................................................... 191

F.3 Appendix Summary .............................................................................................................. 195

Bibliography ..................................................................................................................................... 197

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List of Figures

Figure 2.1: Schematic diagram of (a) planar ultra-thin-body SOI, (b) double-gate FinFET, (c) Tri-gate FET and (d) gate-all-around nanowire FET, viewing in a direction perpendicular to the current transport, representing the evolution of nanowire FET from an ultra-thin-body SOI FET. The required criterion on the Si thickness (tSi) for a given gate length (LG) to have acceptable electrostatics is also shown, indicating more relaxed channel dimension available for nanowire FET (compared to other architectures) to be considered as a candidate for a given technology node. ........... 35

Figure 2.2: Universal dependence of (a) subthreshold slope and (b) drain-induced-barrier-lowering (DIBL) on the scaling parameter, for gate-all-around and double-gate MOSFETs with various oxide and Si thicknesses. Data from Ref. [44]. ................. 37

Figure 2.3: (a) Capacitance circuit model and conduction band profile of a MOSFET, introducing the capacitances of source (Cs), drain (Cd) and oxide (Cox) as well as surface channel charge (Qch) [46, 47]; (b) Simplified capacitance model of the gate of a MOSFET (CG), displaying the physical oxide thickness (Cox) and the quantum capacitance (CQ). .......................................................................... ............................ 39

Figure 2.4: Schematic sub-band structures of two-dimensional electrons for bulk and ultra-thin-body SOI MOSFETs. Structural confinement of the inversion layer in ultra-thin-body SOI MOSFETs decreases the average thickness of the inversion layer (Zav) as well as phonon-limited mobility and increases the inversion layer capacitance and threshold voltage (After Uchida et al. [63]). ................................ ............................ 50

Figure 2.5: Schematic of (left) interface-roughness induced thickness fluctuation scattering and (right) variation of conduction band due to thickness fluctuation scattering in ultra-thin-body SOI channels (After Ref. [64]). .................................... ............................ 51

Figure 2.6: (a) Calculated effective electron mobility of Si inversion layers of MOS system with insulators indicated. Remote scattering with surface optical phonons, anisotropic scattering with acoustic phonons and empirical scattering with surface roughness have been considered (b) Calculated total electron mobility in the

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inversion layer of a HfO2 /SiO2 /Si system as a function of thickness of the interfacial SiO2 layer for the three indicated values of the electron concentration in the inversion layer. The horizontal lines at the far right are the asymptotic limits of infinite oxide thickness (Results from Fischetti et al. [70]). ........ ............................ 53

Figure 2.7: Effective electron and hole mobility of Si as a function of inversion charge density for (100), (111) and (110) surfaces. Mobility is isotropic (direction independent) for (100) and (111) surfaces. Among all surface/directions, (100) and (110)/<110> have the highest electron and hole mobility, respectively (Results from Irie et al. [73]). .............................................................................................. ............................ 55

Figure 2.8: (a) Schematic of Si conduction band’s equienergy ellipsoids, displaying Δ2 and Δ4 valleys; (b) Equienergy valleys of Si on (110) surface. Four valleys with heavy ml and two valleys with light mt contribute to the conduction along <110> direction; (c) Equienergy valleys of Si on (100) surface. Two valleys with heavy ml and four valleys with light mt contribute to the conduction along <100> or <110> direction, offering lower conductivity mass compared to (110) surface. .... ............................ 56

Figure 2.9: (Top) energy and (bottom) equienergy lines of the lowest-lying subbands (HH, LH and SO) along with the position of the Fermi level for (001), (011) and (111) relaxed Si surfaces. Spin degeneracy is lifted away from the center of the zone, so that the density of states given subband depends on spin variables (Results from Fischetti et al. [65]). ...................................................................... ............................ 56

Figure 2.10: Schematic of electron repopulation in the conduction band equienergy valleys of (a) (100) Si under <110> uniaxial or biaxial tension, (b) (110) Si under biaxial tension and (c) (110) Si under <110> uniaxial tension. The current direction for all cases is along <110>, which is favorable for all cases except case (b) where its mobility-enhanced direction is shown. ........................................................ ............................ 58

Figure 2.11: (a) Relative change in the Si effective mass in the direction parallel and perpendicular to a [110] uniaxial tension (open symbols: tight binding [82], filled symbols empirical pseudopotential [82], solid lines: empirical pseudopotential [83]); (b) Relative change in Si electron ballistic velocity vs. relative change in mobility for different strains (Results from Khakifirooz et al. [82]). ....................... 59

Figure 2.12: Simulated hole and electron mobility for (100) and (110) silicon substrates as a function of uniaxial stress along <110> (Results from Packan et al. [74]). ............. 61

Figure 2.13: Schematic of the nano-patterning induced lateral relaxation mechanism. Arrows with solid border show the direction of the strain and arrows with dashed line

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shows the lateral relaxation direction. Biaxial stress is preferentially relaxed in the transverse (lateral) direction. ........................................................ ............................ 63

Figure 2.14: (a) Effective hole mobility vs. inversion charge density (Ninv) for various voltage shift between capacitance and current measurements (ΔV) due to several mechanisms such as measurement stress effects; (b) Relative mobility error (with respect to the case with no shift) as a function of ΔV, for Ninv=1012, 4×1012 and 7×1012 cm-2. While large error is observed for low Ninv, the error is less than 2% at high inversion charge densities. .................................................... ............................ 66

Figure 2.15: (a) Measured capacitance of planar SOI MOSFETs with Al2O3/WN gate using split C-V method for devices with mask gate length, Lmask = 0.4, 0.6, 0.8, 1, 1.2, 1.6 and 2 μm. For Lmask = 0.4 μm, the parasitic component (Cpar) contributes to about a quarter of the total measured capacitance. (b) Plot of maximum capacitance (Cmax) and the minimum parasitic capacitance (Cpar, min) vs. Lmask. Symbols are measured data and solid lines are the best fits to the measured data. The difference of the mask length and the effective gate length (ΔL) was extracted by intersecting the two fitted lines. ............................................................................. ............................ 68

Figure 2.16: (a) Schematic of the gate-all-around nanowire test structures for effective mobility extraction, utilizing two FETs with the same number of nanowire (N) and similar cross-section (central schematic), similar parasitic resistance (i.e. similar contact design rules and S/D materials) and capacitance (i.e. similar fringing, gate-to-pad and gate-to-source/drain overlaps). ............................................... ............................ 69

Figure 3.1: Schematic process flow of modified bond and etch-back technique to fabricate biaxial tensile SSDOI or compressive Ge HOI, after Gomez, et al. [129].. ............. 74

Figure 3.2: Schematic diagram of fabrication of highly asymmetric, virtually uniaxial, strained-Si and strained-Ge nano-structures by unilateral relaxation of SSDOI and Ge HOI substrates. ...................................................................................... ............................ 74

Figure 3.3: (a) Cross-sectional TEM image of strained-Ge HOI substrate. Tilted SEM images of (b) 100 nm and (c) 30 nm wide patterned strained-Ge HOI nano-bars prepared for stress metrology by UV micro-Raman spectroscopy (TEM Courtesy of M.D. Robertson). .................................................................................... ............................ 76

Figure 3.4: (a) Raman spectra (325nm excitation) of the Ge LO phonon with overlaid Lorentzian fit for Ge HOI sample patterned into 30 nm, 50 nm, 100 nm and 300 nm-wide stripes. Dashed line is the signal from the relaxed Ge reference sample. For clarity, the Raman spectra and corresponding analytical fit are shifted vertically

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relative to one another (Raman courtesy of M. Canonico (Freescale)); (b) Extracted biaxial relaxation (solid lines) and Raman peak position (dashed lines) vs. bar width in strained-Ge layer. ..................................................................... ............................ 77

Figure 3.5: Schematic process flow of suspended strained-Si nanowires: (a) after spinning e-beam resist, (b) after resist development and strained-Si reactive-ion etching, (c) after nanowire suspension in dilute HF, and (d) top-down view. (e) Tilted SEM image of the 20 nm wide strained-Si nanowires in a 100 nm pitch; (f) Tilted SEM image of the 18 nm wide ultra-dense strained-Si nanowires in a 40 nm pitch (inset: top view SEM)............................................................................... ............................ 80

Figure 3.6: (a) Raman spectra (courtesy of M. Canonico (Freescale)) of the Si LO phonon from unstrained bulk Si (dashed line) and the 40 μm square box (solid line). The measured Si peak shift is consistent with the strain expected in Si grown on a relaxed SiGe donor substrate with 30% Ge concentration. (b) Raman spectra at the center of suspended strained-Si nanowires (30 nm wide), displaying two peaks corresponding to bulk Si substrate (right) and nanowires (left) with a ~2.1 GPa uniaxial tension along the nanowires. ........................................... ............................ 81

Figure 3.7: (a) Raman spectra (courtesy of M. Canonico (Freescale)) of the Si-Si LO phonon mode for 30 nm wide suspended strained-Si nanowires with pads attached to the oxide, as the laser is scanned from pad to pad in a direction parallel to the nanowire length , as shown in the schematic (b). ......................................... ............................ 82

Figure 3.8: Total in-plane stress (circles, left axis) and corresponding signal-to-noise ratio (squares, right axis) for spectra collected from the 2 μm long nanowires midway between the two pads. ................................................................... ............................ 84

Figure 3.9: (a)-(c) Schematic of the process flow utilized to realize vertically stacked strained-Si nanowires; (d) top view of the stacked-Si nanowires highlighting the region where Raman signal was collected; (e) SEM images of N = 1 to 5 level vertically-stacked strained-Si nanowires. ...................................................... ............................ 86

Figure 3.10: (a) Raman spectra (courtesy of C. D. Poweleit, ASU) of at the center of array of suspended strained-Si nanowires with (WNW = 30 and 35 nm, and N = 1 and 5 number of stacked layers); (b) Biaxial strain relaxation (with starting substrates as reference) vs. number of nanowires as a function of nanowire width, indicating stress preservation after 5 layer stacking of nanowires. ............... ............................ 87

Figure 4.1: (a) Fabrication process flow of gate-all-around uniaxial strained-Si nanowire n-MOSFETs. (b) Top-view and (c) side-view schematic of suspended uniaxially

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tensile strained-Si channel fabricated by lateral relaxation and undercutting the nanowires. Inset shows the nanowire dimensions and stress direction. ................... 90

Figure 4.2: (a) Sample tilted SEM image of suspended strained-Si nanowires. (b) Top-view colored SEM image of gate-all-around strained-Si nanowire n-MOSFET with 10 parallel nanowires. The poly-Si/LTO gate stringers at the edge of ion-implanted source/drain pads were etched using a separate protection mask. ............................ 92

Figure 4.3: Cross-sectional TEM of gate-all-around n-MOSFETs with (a) elliptical and (b) circular cross-section strained-Si nanowires. The focused-ion-beam cut is perpendicular to the nanowire direction (electron transport direction). Heavily-doped poly-Si gate and low-temperature oxide wraps all around the Si nanowires…... ................................................................................ ............................ 93

Figure 4.4: Typical (a) transfer (ID - VGS) and (b) output characteristics (ID - VDS) for a circular cross-section gate-all-around strained-Si nanowire n-MOSFET with N = 10 nanowires, average nanowire diameter of ~ 8 nm, and LNW ~ 0.65 μm. For (a), the left axis shows the current in logarithmic scale while the right axis shows it in linear scale. .............................................................................................. ............................ 94

Figure 4.5: (a) Plot of subthreshold slope as a function of WNW and LNW for SSOI nanowires with low-temperature oxide (LTO) and thermal oxide gate dielectrics showing near ideal subthreshold swing. (b) Variation of threshold voltage (Vth) vs. WNW for SOI and SSOI nanowires showing Vth shift of -120 ± 30 mV due to uniaxial strain-induced conduction band shift. The Vth roll-up for sub 15 nm nanowires is due to quantum mechanical confinement. ............................................... ............................ 95

Figure 4.6: Transfer characteristics of gate-all-around Si and strained-Si nanowire n-MOSFETs (with LTO gate dielectric) showing near ideal subthreshold slope of 65 mV/dec. and ~2X current enhancement and ~ 0.1 V strain-induced Vth shift. ....................... 96

Figure 4.7: (a) Extrinsic transconductance (gm) of SOI and SSOI Gate-all-around nanowires vs.

overdrive voltage (VGS-Vth) for nanowires with WNW 20 nm, tNW = 8 nm. SSOI NW exhibits a 1.95X enhancement in gm, max relative to SOI nanowire devices. The enhancement at higher overdrives is degraded by increased contribution of the external resistance. ........................................................................ ............................ 97

Figure 4.8: (a) Plot of total channel resistance vs. 1/(VGS-Vth-VDS/2) to extract external series

resistance (Rext) for SOI and SSOI nanowires vs. VGS-Vth (WNW 20nm, tNW = 8nm, N = 10). Rext (shown in the figure) is extracted from the intersect of the extrapolated curve with the vertical axis. (b) Intrinsic transconductance of these

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devices after correction for Rext. Enhancement factors of 2.1X at maximum gm and 1.86X at VGS-Vth = 0.7 V are due to the uniaxial strain. .............. ............................ 98

Figure 4.9: Intrinsic gm, max (VDS = 50 mV) vs. WNW for SOI and SSOI gate-all-around devices with LNW = 0.8 μm, tNW ~ 8 ± 1 nm and N = 10, displaying an average enhancement in gm, max of ~2X down to sub-10 nm nanowire dimensions. ....... ............................ 99

Figure 4.10: Split capacitance-voltage characteristics of an SSOI nanowire n-MOSFETs (N = 10, WNW ~ 49 nm, tNW ~ 8 nm, LNW = 10 µm) measured at f = 40 kHz and 40X point averaging to minimize the noise. The gate-channel capacitance (Cgc) was extracted by subtracting the parasitic capacitance, Cpar, (background and overlap capacitance, measured from devices without nanowires but with gate overlap on the S/D regions) was subtracted from the total capacitance (Ctot). (b) Cgc vs. VGS for SSOI nanowire n-MOSFETs (N = 10, WNW ~ 39 nm, tNW ~ 8 nm, LNW = 10 µm) extracted at f = 40 kHz and f = 1 MHz. ....................................... .......................... 100

Figure 4.11: Intrinsic gate-channel capacitance-voltage of gate-all-around SSOI nanowires with WNW = 25, 39, 49 nm. The background and overlap capacitances were subtracted from the original split-CV. 40 point averaging was used to reduce the noise. ....... 101

Figure 4.12: (a) Gate-channel capacitance and (b) total channel resistance of SSOI nanowire n-MOSFETs (N = 10, WNW ~ 49 nm, tNW ~ 8 nm) with LNW = 10 µm (C1) and LNW = 4 µm (C2) used to extract the mobility using 2-FET method. The extracted Rext is also shown in (b) ................................................................................... .......................... 102

Figure 4.13: Low-field electron mobility (μeff) vs. charge density (Ninv) of SSOI NW (WNW = 49 nm, tNW = 8.7 nm) measured by split-CV and 2-FET method. μeff for the widest SOI NW (W = 44nm), planar SOI and SSDOI (tSi = 8.7 nm) (11), and universal are shown for comparison. .................................................................. .......................... 103

Figure 4.14: Low-field electron mobility (μeff) vs. charge density (Ninv) with WNW ~ 15, 20, 25, 39, 49 nm. The electron mobility plot of fully-depleted ultra-thin-body (8 nm) SOI is shown for comparison [67]. Mobility is reduced as WNW is decreased, mostly due to an increase in the contribution of the sidewalls. ...................... .......................... 104

Figure 4.15: (a) Electron mobility for SSOI NWs vs. (a) WNW and (b) the ratio of sidewall to surface (Wsidewall/Wsurarface , as schematically shown in the inset) at Ninv = 1013 cm-2. Overlaid are the mobilities of unstrained-Si nanowires (empty triangles: Ref. [23], empty squares: Ref. [121]). ........................................................... .......................... 105

Figure 4.16: Electron mobility of for SSOI NWs (solid symbols) and SOI NWs (open symbols, [121]) vs. WNW at Ninv = 1013 cm-2. Lines are the empirical model with rμ = 0.34,

19

0.2 and 0.15 (with rμ decreasing in the direction of the arrow) for SSOI NWs and rμ = 0.35 and 0.2 for SOI NWs ......................................................... .......................... 107

Figure 5.1: Process flow utilized to fabricate gate-all-around nanowire p-MOSFETs with high-K/metal gate and hydrogen annealing process. ............................ .......................... 113

Figure 5.2: (a) Schematic of the protection mask to locally release the Si nanowires. (b) Schematic of the suspended Si nanowires after local release in buffered-oxide-etch, demonstrating no space available for gate-stringer at source/drain edges. (c) Schematic of design layout of the Si nanowire MOSFETs, displaying the contact vias, gate-to-pad overlap (< 100 nm), distance between contact via and the gate edge (dvia-gate< 400 nm), and between contact via and metal edge (dvia-metal< 400 nm). ................................................................................................ .......................... 114

Figure 5.3: Schematic device structure of the gate-all-around nanowire MOSFETs designed for mobility extraction. A-A’ and B-B’ cut-lines represent the device cross-sections perpendicular and along the nanowire direction, respectively. Device dimensions (WNW, Wtot, tNW, LNW, Lov and N), channel resistance (RNW and Rov) and capacitive (Cpar) and resistive (Rext) parasitics are shown on the B-B’ cross-section. ............. 115

Figure 5.4: (a) Tilted and (b) cross-sectional SEM images of the final gate-all-around nanowire p-MOSFETs with high-κ/metal-gate, with a FIB cut along the suspended nanowire direction. ........................................................................................ .......................... 116

Figure 5.5: (a) Schematic and (b) top-view SEM of suspended Si nanowires before and after high-temperature hydrogen annealing. The right SEM images were enhanced for brightness, contrast and shadows to magnify the line edge roughness of the Si nanowires. Reduced sidewall roughness is observed after hydrogen annealing. ... 118

Figure 5.6: (a) Plan-view SEM images of suspended Si nanowires subjected to hydrogen anneal at 850°C, with WNW = 14-73 nm; (b) XTEM of on-wafer nanowire test structure (as-patterned WNW = 20 to 60 nm; step 4 nm) subjected to hydrogen anneal at 850°C, after device completion. Nanowires are surrounded by conformal ~1 nm ALD O3-SiO2 / 5.5 nm Al2O3 / 30 nm WN gate stack (stack κ = 7.4). For wide nanowires, tNW = 16 nm; dropping to 13 nm for the circular nanowire. (110), (111) and (311) sidewall facets are discernible from the XTEM images. .............. 119

Figure 5.7: SEM image of array of nanowire test structure (a) as-patterned, (b) after hydrogen annealing at 875°C and (c) after hydrogen annealing at 900°C. Anisotropic hydrogen etching and nanowire pinch-off at the pad/nanowire boundaries are observed for annealing at temperatures higher than 875°C. ........ .......................... 121

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Figure 5.8: High-resolution Focused-Ion-Beam (FIB) cross-sectional SEM image of a nanowire test structure (with as patterned WNW = 20 to 60 nm; step 4 nm) subjected to hydrogen anneal at 850°C followed by 875°C, after device completion. Nanowire diameters (dNW, as defined in the SEM image) are scaled from 22 nm down to sub-10 nm, mostly with circular cross sections. ............ .......................... 122

Figure 5.9: (a) Split capacitance-voltage characteristics of SOI p-MOSFETs with 7 cycles of ALD O3, 60 cycles of Al2O3 and WN metal gate, measured at f = 1, 10 and 100 kHz ; The Al2O3 dielectric was deposited using Tri-Methyl-Aluminum (TMA) source at 200°C. (b) Corresponding forward and backward sweeps at f = 100 kHz, showing 80 mV hysteresis ........................................................................... .......................... 124

Figure 5.10: (a) Split capacitance-voltage characteristics of SOI p-MOSFETs with 7 cycles of ALD O3, 55 cycles of Al2O3 and WN metal gate, showing negligible frequency dependence at f = 1, 10 and 100 kHz; The Al2O3 dielectric was deposited using Tri-Methyl-Aluminum (TMA) source at 250°C. (b) Corresponding forward and backward sweeps at f = 100 kHz, showing no hysteresis. ........... .......................... 125

Figure 5.11: Effective hole mobility vs. inversion charge density (Ninv) for planar SOI devices with ALD O3-SiO2 / Al2O3 / WN process. Al2O3 was deposited using Tri-Methyl-Aluminum (TMA) at 200°C and 250°C and Tris-Di-Methyl-Amido-Aluminum (TDMAA) at 200°C. ..................................................................... .......................... 126

Figure 5.12: (a) Schematic of the test structure used to extract the WN workfunction; (b) Plot of flatband voltage (VFB) vs. capacitance effective thickness (CET) for WN/Al2O3/SiO2/Si stack as the thickness of the SiO2 is varied. . .......................... 127

Figure 6.1: (a) Transfer and output characteristics of gate-all-around ~15 nm-diameter nanowire (LNW = 0.6 µm, N = 500) p-MOSFETs with high-K/metal gate and hydrogen anneal process, showing ideal sub-threshold slope of 61 mV/dec and very high on-to-off ratio. ....................................................................... .......................... 131

Figure 6.2: (a) Subthreshold slope (SS) and (b) threshold voltage (Vth) as a function of WNW for gate-all-around p-MOSFETs with Al2O3/WN gate stack. All devices show ideal swing (with a minimum of 60.5 mV/dec for 15 nm circular NW), indicating very low Dit. ........................................................................................... .......................... 132

Figure 6.3: Transfer characteristics of 22×15.6 nm gate-all-around nanowire p-MOSFETs (with N = 500 nanowires) treated with hydrogen anneal at 850°C (condition B) and without hydrogen anneal (condition A), indicating ideal SS = 61 mV/dec and very

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high on-to-off ratio (~1010). No hysteresis was observed in the transfer characteristics. ............................................................................... .......................... 133

Figure 6.4: Plots of (a) ID vs. gate over-drive voltage (VGS-Vth) and (b) ID vs. VDS for VGS-Vth = -2 V to 0 V step -0.25 V, for 22×15.6 nm gate-all-around nanowire p-MOSFETs with hydrogen anneal at 850°C (condition B) and without hydrogen anneal (condition A), indicating ~1.6X enhancement for linear and saturation current due to the hydrogen anneal process (condition B). ............................. .......................... 134

Figure 6.5: Typical split-CV and ID-VGS measurements of 15 nm-diameter circular nanowire (with LNW= 0.6 and 1.2 µm) for mobility extraction using the 2-FET method. Drain current was measured at VDS = -50 mV. Current and capacitances are normalized by the number of nanowires (N = 500). ....................................... .......................... 135

Figure 6.6: Simulated (nextnano3) hole charge density in nanowires with (a) circular (15.6×14 nm, dNW~15 nm) and (b) elliptical (22×15.7 nm) and cross-sections for VGS-VFB = -1.3 V. Inversion centroid is displaced from nanowire surface by the distance δQM(VGS). Simulation courtesy of J. Teherani.. ............................ .......................... 136

Figure 6.7: Measured and nextnano3 simulated inversion capacitance of 15 nm-diameter circular and 22 nm×15.6 nm elliptical nanowires, demonstrating very good agreement between measured and simulated results, verifying mobility extraction method. Only physical dimensions (derived from TEM), κ (extracted from planar CV measurements) and Qf were input into the simulations. The upper and lower simulated curves correspond to a metal with high and low density of states, respectively. Simulation courtesy of J. Teherani. ........................ .......................... 137

Figure 6.8: Measured (symbols) and simulated (lines) intrinsic capacitances for nanowires annealed at 875°C (condition C) with nanowire diameter, dNW = 8-17 nm. dNW was measured by high-resolution cross-sectional SEM and was input into the simulations for 12 and 17 nm nanowires. For sub-10 nm nanowires, the effective circular diameter (dNW,eq) was extracted by fitting simulations to the CV measurements. Simulation courtesy of J. Teherani. ..................... .......................... 138

Figure 6.9: Effective hole mobility vs. inversion charge density (Ninv, normalized by nanowire circumference) for nanowires with WNW = 22-72 nm, without hydrogen anneal. Similar mobilities are observed at high Ninv for various WNW, with a ~20 % drop compared to planar (100) SOI device. .......................................... .......................... 139

Figure 6.10: (a) Effective hole mobility vs. Ninv (normalized by nanowire circumference) for nanowires with WNW = 15-72 nm subjected to hydrogen anneal at 850°C (condition

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B). Monotonic mobility enhancement with decreasing nanowire width is observed, due to increased contribution of high-mobility sidewalls and reduced sidewall roughness scattering. Mobility is enhanced by 47% relative to the widest nanowire and 33% over planar (100) SOI device at Ninv=1.1×1013cm-2. (b) Hole mobility vs. Ninv for 15 nm circular nanowires demonstrating mobility enhancement over planar SOI and the highest mobility of nanowires without hydrogen anneal. Significant enhancement is seen relative to published data for sub-15 nm thickness nanowires…. .................................................................................. .......................... 140

Figure 6.11: Hole mobility vs. Ninv, normalized by nanowire physical perimeter (dashed line) and with quantum-mechanical (QM) correction (symbols) for circular (15.6×14 nm, dNW ~ 15 nm) and elliptical (22×15.7 nm) nanowires. The QM correction to the perimeter was calculated using simulations at each gate bias. .... .......................... 141

Figure 6.12: (a) Transfer characteristics of gate-all-around nanowire p-MOSFETs (with dNW ~ 8, 10, 12, 17, 22 nm and LNW = 0.6 µm subjected to non-optimized hydrogen anneal (condition C). Non ideal swings (>80 mV/dec) suggest that nanowires have high density of interface traps due to non-optimized condition C. ...... .......................... 142

Figure 6.13: Plots of effective hole mobility vs. inversion charge density, for nanowires with (a) WNW = 12-32 nm and (b) WNW < 12 nm subjected to non-optimized hydrogen anneal (condition C). Mobilities are generally reduced due to high density of interface traps of condition C. ....................................................... .......................... 143

Figure 6.14: Width-dependence of hole mobility for nanowires with and without hydrogen anneal, at Ninv= 5×1012 and 1013 cm-2. Flat mobility behavior is observed without hydrogen anneal due to a balance between high-mobility non-(100) planes and sidewall roughness scattering. The latter mechanism is significantly diminished with hydrogen anneal (condition B), and more than 57% enhancement is observed for WNW < 22 nm. .......................................................................... .......................... 144

Figure 6.15: Hole mobility of Si nanowires vs. WNW at Ninv = 1013 cm-2. Symbols correspond to the experimental results. Lines are the empirical model with μs = 70 cm2/V.s and rμ = 1.95 (dot-dashed line), μs = 50 cm2/V.s and rμ = 1.95 (solid line), and μs = 70 cm2/V.s and rμ = 0.9-1.42 (dot-dashed line) to fit the experimental data. .............. 145

Figure 6.16: Hole mobility in Si nanowires subjected to hydrogen anneal at 875°C (condition C) vs. nanowire diameter (width) for Ninv = 5×1012 and 1013 cm-2. Increased mobility is observed by reducing dNW to 12 nm diameter (elliptical to circular shape transition), while the mobility of sub-12 nm circular nanowires is reduced as dNW is decreased... .................................................................................... .......................... 147

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Figure 6.17: Comparison of the normalized hole mobility (at Ninv = 1013 cm-2) vs. nanowire width, for various post-suspension treatments. Mobilities are normalized by the mobility of on-chip planar SOI p-MOSFET, extracted for each process condition. Similar normalized mobilities are observed for hydrogen annealed nanowires processed at conditions B and C, in the common range of WNW. .......................... 148

Figure A.1: Plot of relative remaining Hydrogen Silsesquioxane (HSQ) thickness vs. exposure dose for HSQ on HOI samples exposed at 10 keV and 30 keV. Both samples were prebaked at 90°C for 4 minutes and developed with 25 wt. % TMAH for 1 minute. While similar contrast is observed, higher dose is required to expose HSQ at energy of 30 keV. ...................................................................................... .......................... 158

Figure A.2: Contrast curve for 4% XR-1541 Hydrogen Silsesquioxane (HSQ) exposed at 30 keV and developed in 0.26N TMAH and 25 wt. % TMAH at the room temperature. The contrast is significantly enhanced using 25 wt. % TMAH. ......... .......................... 160

Figure A.3: Contrast curve for 4% XR-1541 Hydrogen Silsesquioxane (HSQ) prebaked at 200°C and 90°C for 2 minutes, exposed at 30 keV and developed in 25 wt. % TMAH for 1 minute. While similar contrast is observed, prebaking at 90°C has a wider exposure window. ......................................................................................... .......................... 160

Figure A.4: (a) Typical plan-view SEM image of 20 nm-wide 4% XR-1541 Hydrogen Silsesquioxane (HSQ) line and (b) corresponding line edge profile. HSQ was developed in 25 wt % TMAH for 60 seconds. (c) Tilted SEM image of HSQ lines (various width) on Si wafer after Si etch and (d) magnified cross-sectional SEM of 17.3 nm HSQ line (with an aspect ratio of ~5) on a Si fin. .......... .......................... 161

Figure A.5: SEM images of the e-beam alignment marks with various sizes in the range of ~0.2 µm to ~ 6 µm created by photolithography and over-exposure. .. .......................... 162

Figure A.6: SEM image of nanowire/pad structure created using hybrid lithography process (a) before Si reactive-ion etching and (b) after Si reactive-ion etching and photoresist ashing. ............................................................................................ .......................... 163

Figure A.7: SEM images of ultra-dense 10 nm 6% XR-1541 Hydrogen Silsesquioxane (HSQ) lines in 30 nm pitch achieved by a salty developed. .................... .......................... 164

Figure B.1: Raman spectra of the Si-Si LO phonon mode as the laser is scanned from pad to pad in a direction parallel to the nanowire length for (a) 40 nm, (b) 25 nm and (c) 20 nm-wide nanowires. The nanowires are ~25 nm thick and 2 μm long. .................. 168

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Figure B.2: Total in-plane stress extracted from the data assuming biaxial isotropic strain for each spectrum along the Raman line scan for nanowires with widths of (a) 40, (b) 30, (c) 25, and (d) 20 nm. ......................................................................... .......................... 169

Figure B.3: (a) Low (b) and high laser power spectra of the Si LO phonons from the nanowires and substrate. Thermal expansion contributes to an apparent ~0.18 GPa total in-plane stress shift in the high power case. ...................................... .......................... 170

Figure B.4: (a) Raman spectra of the Si-Si LO phonon mode and (b) total in-plane stress as the laser is scanned from pad to pad in a direction parallel to the nanowire length, for ultra-dense 18 nm-wide nanowires. The nanowire pitch size was reduced to 40 nm to improve the Raman signal-to-noise ratio. ................................ .......................... 170

Figure C.1: Schematic of starting as-grown epitaxial substrates with (a) single and (b) N = 5 period superlattice of strained-Si/Si0.7Ge0.3; (c) Raman spectra of the Si LO phonon from the as grown substrate with N = 5 periods using 4 different excitation wavelengths which vary the penetration depth into the layers. No change in Raman peak position was observed using different laser lines with different penetration depths, indicating similar stress in all layers; (d) Raman spectra of starting substrates with N=1 to 5 periods using 458 nm laser and (e) relative Raman shift from a Si reference corresponding to strained-Si and relaxed SiGe peaks. For all samples (up to 5 periods), the starting substrates show fully strained Si. The bulk Si signal is successfully eliminated for an excitation wavelength of 458 nm via the intervening thick relaxed SiGe layer. ........................................... .......................... 174

Figure D.1: (a) SEM image of the gate photoresist on the S/D anchors after successive alignment corrections, demonstrating excellent alignment(< 30 nm accuracy). (b) SEM image of the photoresist masking layer to etch poly-Si stringers from the S/D anchor edges. Note this is a test structure with no poly-Si gate (not a real device) to demonstrate the position of the stringer-etch mask. ..................... .......................... 180

Figure E.1: (a) Optical photograph of in-situ N+ doped poly-Si wafer pieces deposited at 560°C and annealed at temperatures between 600°C and 700°C, demonstrating color change from green to magenta as the temperature is increased; (b) Plot of sheet resistance as a function annealing temperature, for in-situ N+ doped poly-Si deposited at 560°C.. ...................................................................... .......................... 187

Figure F.1: (a) Top-view schematic of Si/Ge nanowire PMOS device with N parallel nanowires and a cutline indicating where the TEM cross-section was obtained; (b) cross-section TEM image of Si-core/Ge-shell NW with Al2O3/WN gate stack. ............. 190

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Figure F.2: (a) Transfer characteristics of Si-core/Ge-shell nanowire p-MOSFET for various core Si nanowire widths in the range of 20–50 nm; (b) Output characteristics of Si-core/Ge-shell nanowire p-MOSFET with WSi-NW = 20 nm; (c) Measured inversion capacitance of each wire normalized per wire length as a function of WSi-NW. ..... 191

Figure F.3: (a) Hole mobility of Si-core/Ge-shell multi-nanowire p-MOSFETs with Al2O3/WN gate stack, as a function of inversion charge density; (b) Hole mobility and enhancement factor over the widest wire with WSi-NW = 70 nm, as a function of core-Si NW width, indicating enhanced hole transport with decreasing wire width… .......................................................................................... .......................... 192

Figure F.4: Finite element (a) transverse and (b) longitudinal stress simulations of wide (WSi-NW = 55 nm) and narrow (WSi-NW = 20 nm) Si-core/Ge-shell nanowires based on 1.4 GPa intrinsic stress of the gate stack. Both nanowires show similar longitudinal compressive stress. The wide nanowire shows transverse compression while narrow nanowire shows transverse tension in the top Ge surface. ........... .......................... 194

List of Tables

Table 6.1: Process splits for post-suspension nanowire treatment, indicating pre-dielectric cleaning and hydrogen annealing conditions. .............................. .......................... 129

Table A.1: Optimized process flow for e-beam lithography using HSQ negative-tone resist........ ....................................................................................... .......................... 158

Table C.1: Process flow utilized to realize vertically stacked strained-Si nanowires. ............. 176

Table D.1: Process flow to fabricate gate-all-around nanowire n-MOSFETs. ......................... 177

Table E.1: Process flow to fabricate gate-all-around nanowire p-MOSFETs. ......................... 183

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27

Chapter 1 Introduction 1.1 Thesis Introduction and Motivation

Complementary Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor (CMOS) technology has been scaled during the

past 30 years with a drive to continuously increase the density of devices on a chip and increase

the switching performance of transistors, the major components of electronic circuits. Towards

the end of the ITRS roadmap [1], in which the channel length is predicted to be aggressively

scaled, careful device design consideration is required due to the trade-offs between device

current drive, short channel effects and power consumption. The on-state current (Ion) of a

MOSFET is represented by

/ (1.1)

where W is the device’s width, VDD is the power-supply voltage, Vth is threshold voltage, Qs is

the inversion charge density and v is the velocity near the source region (injection velocity). The

power consumption, Pdiss, can be approximated by [2]

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10 (1.2)

where PD, PS, α, f, CL, and S are dynamic power dissipation, static power dissipation, activity

factor, operating frequency, load capacitance, and sub-threshold slope, respectively and Ileak

represents the total leakage current from gate and junction sources, and Ith is the drain current at

Vth. In order to maintain low power consumption, lower VDD and leakage current, higher Vth and

steeper S is required according to equation (1.2). On the other hand large gate capacitance, low

Vth and high velocity are required to achieve a high performance in terms of Ion. In addition to

the trade-offs for Vth and VDD, the choice of high CG requires thinner dielectric which can

increase direct tunneling which enhances the leakage and increases the power consumption.

From the electrostatics point of view, high substrate doping is required for aggressively-scaled

planar devices to control the short channel effects. The high doping results in increased junction

and gate-induced-drain leakage (GIDL) [3], degraded on current due to the increased Coulombic

scattering [4] and increased variation in threshold voltage [5]. In addition, extension and halo

implants needed to control short channel effects increase source/drain parasitic series resistance

which degrade the current drive [6]. Considering the trade-off between the current drive, short

channel effects and power consumption [7], conventional Si MOSFETs fail to satisfy the device

requirements and new materials and device architectures are required for future CMOS

generations.

To enhance the current drive, new channel materials such as strained-Si, SiC, SiGe, Ge, III-V

have been extensively investigated over the past 20 years, by many academic and industrial

researchers with some representative papers given in references [8-13]. Uniaxially strained-Si

technology with tensile liner and embedded SiGe stressors was incorporated into main-stream

29

CMOS production starting at the 90 nm technology node [14]. To further continue scaling and

improve the current drive high-permittivity-dielectric (high-κ)/metal gate technology has also

been commercialized by Intel in the 45 nm technology node. This has been shown to

dramatically improve the gate leakage and power consumption for both NMOS and PMOS

devices [15]. Ultra-thin-body and multi-gate SOI devices have been shown to provide excellent

scalability and immunity to short-channel effects [16, 17]. The geometry enables excellent

electrostatic control by the gate and the lightly-doped Si channel dramatically reduces the

random dopant fluctuation and Vth variation [16]. In addition, these device architectures benefit

from lower capacitive parasitics and junction leakage due to the presence of a thick buried oxide.

Among various options for a multi-gate device architecture, such as double-gate, tri-gate,

etc., the nanowire (NW) channel with a wrap-around gate, so called Gate-All-Around (GAA),

has the largest advantage in terms of electrostatic integrity as will be discussed in Chapter 2.

Two approaches are generally used to fabricate Si NWs as well as other semiconductor NWs:

bottom-up and top-down. In the first method, NWs are usually grown using a metallic catalyst on

a separate substrate, usually through a Vapor-Liquid-Solid (VLS) growth mechanism. After a

chemical or mechanical separation step, the NWs are harvested and transferred to another

substrate [18-20]. In the top down-approach, the NWs are fabricated using a CMOS compatible

technology, such as lithography-based patterning and etching [21]. Unlike the bottom-up

approach where the NWs are randomly distributed, the top-down method enables accurate

positioning of the NWs across the wafer and facilitates the ultra-large-scale-integration for high-

performance nano-electronic circuits. Moreover, due to process difficulties related to the length

of grown NWs, NW release and gate-etch process, most of the VLS grown NW transistors have

an omega-shaped gate (Ω-gate) geometry and are thus not full gate-all-around [18].

30

In a long channel MOSFET, carriers encounter various scattering mechanisms on their path

toward the drain terminal. Carrier mobility is a well known benchmark to judge the intrinsic

performance of a long channel MOSFET. Equation (1.1) indicates that the injection velocity near

the source determines the on-state current of a short channel device. As will be discussed in

Chapter 2, state-of-the art short channel devices do not operate in the fully ballistic regime (they

are at roughly 60% of the ballistic limit) and mobility is related to velocity through effective

mass and ballistic ratio. Therefore, understanding the carrier mobility is beneficial to design and

engineer new devices for future CMOS generations. To date, very few groups have examined the

intrinsic transport in Si NWs [22-25]. The presence of significant resistive and capacitive

parasitics as well as lack of large capacitance due to the small size of the NW channel adds

complexities to the extraction of the intrinsic NW characteristics. In most of the published

reports, either over-simplified calculations or in-complete device charge simulations lead to

inaccurate and unreasonable mobility extraction [25]. While in the other reports with more

careful extraction techniques and design, the lack of a well-behaved top-down process (as

compared to the bottom-up-fabricated NWs with smooth, near ideal sidewalls) results in

significant mobility degradation for smaller NW sizes [23], which is not intrinsic to NWs in

general.

This thesis is about transport enhancement techniques in GAA MOSFETs. As part of this

thesis, the fabrication of Si NWs with uniaxial tensile strain is demonstrated using a novel top-

down scheme. The Si NW channel combines the suspended structure required for GAA

architecture as well as built-in uniaxial tension with potential for electron transport enhancement.

The performance of novel GAA Si NW n-MOSFETs with uniaxial strain is analyzed in this

thesis. GAA Si NW p-MOSFETs were also fabricated and analyzed. In order to accurately

31

extract the hole mobility of Si NWs, a process was designed and developed using an optimized

hydrogen anneal process to form smooth, high-quality NW sidewalls. The process also benefits

from utilization of a high-κ /metal gate technology required for future CMOS generations and to

avoid the complexity which occurs when extracting mobility of NWs due to non-uniform nature

of common dielectrics such as crystal orientation-dependent thermally grown or low-temperature

oxide. Mobility enhancement over planar SOI MOSFETs is observed for both engineered n-

channel and p-channel NW GAA MOSFETs. The observations provide insights into the physics

of NW MOSFETs which are of interest for future low-power, high-performance CMOS

technologies.

1.2 Thesis Outline

Chapter 2 briefly overviews the background physics and methods incorporated in the next

chapters to facilitate the understanding of the rest of this thesis. The universal scaling and

transport theory of MOSFETs is provided and various scattering mechanism are briefly

discussed. Prospects and possible candidates to enhance the transport of multi-gate devices are

also presented. In addition, mobility extraction methodology used in this thesis is discussed at the

end of this chapter.

Chapter 3 presents the fabrication and stress characterization of novel asymmetrically

strained-Ge and silicon nano-bars/wires with potential transport enhancements for future multi-

32

gate CMOS. Device design, fabrication and characterization of GAA Si NW n-MOSFETs with

and without strain are presented in chapter 4. Detailed intrinsic transconductance and electron

mobility extraction for strained-Si NW n-MOSFETs with various dimensions are provided in this

chapter.

Device design considerations to accurately investigate the hole mobility in Si NW MOSFETs

with a high-κ/metal gate process are presented in chapter 5. An optimized high-κ/ metal gate and

high-temperature hydrogen anneal process is described and the role of hydrogen anneal is

investigated. Chapter 6 investigates the electrical performance of Si NWs with the above process

and detailed hole mobility extraction down to 8 nm NW dimensions is discussed.

Chapter 7 summarizes and concludes the thesis and suggestions for future work to further

enhance the transport in multi-gate NWs are given. In addition, the process and characterization

details are presented in Appendices A-E. Finally, fabrication and hole transport in Si/Ge core-

shell NWs is presented in Appendix F.

33

Chapter 2 Thesis Background

This chapter briefly overviews the background physics and methods required to facilitate the

understanding of the rest of this thesis. After an introduction to multi-gate MOSFETs, the

scaling theory of the MOSFET is briefly discussed in section 2.2 of this chapter. Section 2.3

overviews the transport theory and major scattering mechanisms in Si MOSFETs. Possible

transport enhancement solutions for planar and multi-gate MOSFETs are provided in section 2.4,

including discussion of surface orientation and channel direction, strain engineering and new

processes and channel materials. Finally, section 2.5 presents the extraction methodologies to

characterize the carrier mobility in gate-all-around nanowire transistors.

2.1 Introduction to Multi-gate Devices

Conventional bulk Si technology has been the mainstream technology since the beginning of

the CMOS industry. As the channel scales from one generation to the next, increased channel

doping and halo implant are required to control short channel effects. In addition, junction

leakage is a determining factor for the overall off-state leakage. Moreover, the source/drain to

34

bulk capacitive parasitics are more pronounced in aggressively scaled MOSFETs. These parasitic

capacitances are significantly reduced by partially-depleted (PD) Silicon-On-Insulator (SOI)

technology which has been in production by a few groups for low-power applications [26]. On

the other hand, utilizing fully-depleted (FD) SOI technology where the entire channel is depleted

due to the thin Si body, the gate control is significantly enhanced compared to the bulk Si. In

addition to the reduced parasitics and junction leakage, the lightly-doped or undoped Si

minimizes random dopant fluctuations and thus decreases the threshold voltage variation, which

is a concern for nanoscale state-of-the art transistors. Moreover, from the process point of view,

the issues related to halo and implant damage and device isolation are essentially eliminated for

ultra-thin body FD SOI technology compared to the bulk Si process [16].

In order to control short channel effects in planar SOI MOSFETs and maintain reasonable

electrostatics at a given gate length, LG, a critical Si thickness, tSi on the order of LG/3 is required

[27, 28]. As an example, for the 15 nm node technology, a gate length of 15 nm is indicated by

the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors (ITRS), which demands a FD-SOI

technology with a Si body thickness of around 5 nm. In addition to manufacturing issues

regarding the control of Si critical thickness dimension, the confinement of carriers results in

degradation of carrier transport (as discussed in section 2.3) and large external resistance.

Therefore, multi-gate devices have been suggested to further relax the critical Si dimension as

well as benefit from the aforementioned FD-SOI device and process technology. For this

purpose, planar double-gate [29], fully DEpleted Lean-channel TrAnsistor (DELTA) [30],

vertical double-gate (FinFET) [31-34], triple-gate (Tri-gate) [35], omega-shaped gate (Ω-gate)

[36], penta-gate [37], Inverted T-channel FET [38], Φ-FET [24], and Gate-All-Around (GAA)

nanowire [21-24], [39-42] have been suggested by various researchers over the past decade.

35

While most of these multi-gate technologies have been experimentally shown to benefit from

excellent electrostatics and short-channel effects, they commonly suffer from a complicated

fabrication process technology compared to planar bulk or SOI technology. Figure 2.1 shows the

device schematic of (a) ultra-thin body planar FD SOI, (b) double-gate FinFET (c) tri-gate and

(d) GAA NW MOSFETs. The critical Si dimensions to sustain acceptable electrostatics [36] are

also presented. It can be seen that the criterion of Si film thickness is successfully relaxed for the

nanowire MOSFET, which is naturally evolved from double-gate FinFET technology.

Figure 2.1: Schematic diagram of the device cross-section, viewed in the direction of the current transport for (a) planar ultra-thin-body SOI, (b) double-gate FinFET, (c) Tri-gate FET and (d) gate-all-around nanowire FET, representing the evolution of nanowire FET from an ultra-thin-body SOI FET. The required criterion on the Si thickness (tSi) for a given gate length (LG) to have acceptable electrostatics is also shown, indicating more relaxed channel dimension available for nanowire FET (compared to other architectures) to be considered as a candidate for a given technology node.

36

2.2 Scaling Theory of MOSFETs and Advantages of Nanowires

The scaling behavior and electrostatics of thin-body SOI (single or multi-gate) and gate-all-

around nanowire MOSFETs is determined by the surface potential in the channel which results

in the injection of carriers from the source to the drain terminal. The electrostatic potential, Φ, in

the channel can be solved using Poisson’s equation, with a parabolic solution in the form of

equation (2.1) as suggested by Young [27]:

Φ , (2.1)

where z and r are directions along and perpendicular to the current direction, respectively. The

1D Poisson’s equation for the surface potential (Φs), for various channel geometries, can be

simplified to:

Φ Φ Φ Φ

(2.2)

where Φg , Φbi, ρ, N and εs are gate and built in potentials, mobile and channel doping densities

and channel permittivity, respectively. The solution to the second-order differential equation

(2.2) has an exponential form given by

Φ exp (2.3)

where λ is the so called natural length or screening length, representing the length scaled for

channel potential variation. The natural length contains information about the device geometry.

The analytical solutions for double gate and gate-all-around structures are given by equations

(2.4) and (2.5), respectively [43, 44]:

37

εS2ε

1ε tS4εS t

tS t

(2.4)

2εS tS ln 12

ε tS

16

(2.5)

where tSi, εSi, tox and εox are the physical thickness and permittivity of Si and dielectric,

respectively. With the scaling parameter, α, defined as

2

(2.6)

there is a universality for scaling of various devices with different architecture or geometries.

Figure 2.2 shows a simulation-based example of the universality of sub-threshold slope and

Drain-Induced-Barrier-Lowering (DIBL) for GAA and double-gate MOSFETs for various oxide

and Si thicknesses [44]. Recent results by Bangsaruntip et al. for short channel GAA Si NWs and

planar FD-SOI MOSFETs also provide experimental evidence for this universality [42].

Figure 2.2: Universal dependence of (a) subthreshold slope and (b) drain-induced-barrier-lowering (DIBL) on the scaling parameter, for gate-all-around and double-gate MOSFETs with various oxide and Si thicknesses. Data from Ref. [44].

38

In the off-state operation mode, the solution for maximum potential which determines the

sub-threshold drain current is given by [45]

Φ 2 Φ Φ Φ Φ Φ exp2

Φ Φ

(2.7)

where Φd = -qVds is the drain potential. For an ideal MOSFET with L >> λ, δ Φs ≈ δ Φg and

∂Φs/∂Φd ≈ 0. In other words, the gate has direct control over the channel surface potential and

short channel effects are diminished when the natural length of a device is much smaller than the

gate length. This leads to an ideal inverse sub-threshold slope, SS, defined as

logln 10 1 ,

(2.8)

where kB is the Boltzmann constant, T is the operation temperature, CB and CS,D are bulk and

S/D capacitances and Cit is the interface trap capacitance. For an electrostatically well-behaved

device (Cox >> CB and CS,D) with an ideal dielectric interface (Cit = 0), the right term is negligible

and the sub-threshold slope approaches ~60 mV/dec. at room temperature. For GAA nanowires

with a thickness similar to single-gate or double-gate SOI MOSFETs, the natural length is larger

which results in lower sub-threshold slope and DIBL at a given gate length. This clearly

indicates why nanowires are attractive for future CMOS generations. Figure 2.3 (a) illustrates a

capacitance circuit model of a MOSFET, where Cs and Cd are the source and drain capacitances

and Cox = εox / tox is the physical oxide capacitance [46, 47]. The inversion-layer capacitance or

quantum capacitance is defined as

Φ

(2.9)

39

which is the variation of channel charge, Qch, due to a change in the surface potential. The origin

of the quantum capacitance is the finite band bending required to increase Qch due to the finite

density of states. Figure 2.3 (b) shows a schematic of the gate capacitance components including

quantum capacitance [46-48]. Using the circuit model shown in Figure 2.3 (a) and equation (2.8)

the variation of surface-channel potential is given by

Φ Φ Φ

(2.10)

Figure 2.3: (a) Capacitance circuit model and conduction band profile of a MOSFET, introducing the capacitances of source (Cs), drain (Cd) and oxide (Cox) as well as surface channel charge (Qch) [46, 47]; (b) Simplified capacitance model of the gate of a MOSFET (CG), displaying the physical oxide thickness (Cox) and the quantum capacitance (CQ).

As described earlier, for an electrostatically well-behaved device in the sub-threshold regime,

δ Φs ≈ δ Φg and ∂Φs/∂Φd ≈ 0. As a result, Cox >> Cd, CQ. However, in the on-state the quantum

capacitance is proportional to the density of states, Φ , where Ef source is

the source Fermi level [49, 50]. For a 3-D system like a bulk Si MOSFET, with a density of

states proportional to Φ , the quantum capacitance is continuously increased by increasing

gate voltage and according to (2.10), ∂Φs/∂Φg approaches zero. For a nanowire MOSFET with

40

very small channel dimensions, quantization results in sub-band separation. When the sub-band

separation exceeds the thermal energy, one-dimensional (1-D) transport results with a density of

states proportional to 1/ Φ . As a result, quantum capacitance becomes smaller than the

physical oxide capacitance and the device operates in the quantum capacitance limit, i.e. the gate

capacitance is governed by the quantum capacitance rather than oxide thickness [47]. In addition,

according to equation (2.10), ∂Φs/∂Φg no longer approaches zero and approaches unity in the

limit of extremely scaled dielectric thickness. It is worth mentioning that for realistic oxide

thicknesses, the quantum capacitance limit happens in materials with very low density-of-states

effective mass such as InAs [51].

2.3 Carrier Transport and Scattering Mechanisms

2.3.1 Mobility and Velocity

The drain current of a MOSFET is determined by the charge density (Qs) and velocity (vs) of

carriers near the source and can be simply represented by [52]

/ (2.11)

where Qs is the channel charge density given by Qs = Cg (Vgs - Vth). In a long channel

MOSFET, the source velocity vs is proportional to the electric field and low field effective

mobility, µeff, near the source edge. The low field effective mobility of a MOSFET is affected by

various scattering mechanism that carriers encounter when moving in the channel towards the

drain end and is inversely proportional to the effective mass of carriers and is given by

41

(2.12)

where τ is the scattering relaxation time and m* is the carrier’s effective mass [53]. Various

sources of scattering will be discussed later in this section, where in most of them the scattering

relaxation time in the two-dimensional inversion layer is inversely proportional to the density of

state effective mass, mD [54]:

(2.13)

In this equation, mc is the carrier conductivity effective mass. On the other hand, according to

Lundstrom’s theory, carriers obey quasi-ballistic transport in short channel devices in which non-

stationary transport becomes dominant [52]. Here, the injection velocity of carriers over the

potential barrier near the source, vinj, determines the drain current. The drain current in this case

is given by:

11

(2.14)

where Qssource is the inversion charge density near the source, r is the backscattering rate towards

the source. The backscattering rate is determined by the mean free path of the carriers, λ, and the

distance, l, over which the channel potential drops by the thermal voltage:

(2.15)

The l factor is also called the critical length for scattering and is empirically estimated as a

fraction of the effective channel length. The second term of (2.14), B = (1-r)/(1+r) is often called

ballistic efficiency, which indicates how close the transport is to the ballistic thermal limit [55,

56]. The injection velocity for non-degenerate and degenerate limits is given by [56, 57]:

42

12 / , for the non-degenerate limit (2.16)

43

/ / / / / , for the degenerate limit (2.17)

where vth and vF are thermal and Fermi velocities and mx and my are in-plane effective masses

along and perpendicular to the transport direction, respectively. In order to increase the source

injection velocity, lighter in-plane masses are required. Comparing equation 2.13 for mobility

and 2.17 for injection velocity and considering the fact that mobility change is only a

consequence of the effective mass, vinj µeff½. In general, considering various scattering

mechanisms leads to [58]:

, where 0 ≤ α ≤ 0.5 (2.18)

Khakifirooz showed that the critical length of scattering is proportional to the low field

mobility by a power law [58]:

, where β ≈ 0.45 (2.19)

Using equations (2.15), (2.18) and (2.19), the relation between the change in mobility and

injection velocity is given by:

1 1

(2.20)

As a result of the correlation between vinj and µeff, and the fact that state-of-the-art devices

are not working in fully-ballistic regime, understanding of mobility for new channel materials

and systems such as strained-Si and nanowires is important and can provide new insights for

43

design of short channel devices. In the following sections, various mechanisms that affect the

scattering in modern CMOS devices are overviewed.

2.3.2 Scattering Mechanisms

In a real device where transport is not fully ballistic, carriers can be scattered via interaction

with ionized impurities, other carriers, lattice vibrations, imperfect dielectric interface or

remotely from the dipoles in the high-κ dielectric. These collisions leads to a change of the

carrier’s crystal momentum, p = ħk, to another state with a crystal momentum of p'. Knowing

the scattering potential, the scattering rates can be approximated using Fermi’s Golden Rule

using

1Ω

exp . /

(2.21)

where ħ, Ω, Hp'p and Us and are reduced Planck constant, scattering volume, matrix element and

perturbing potential, respectively. The transition rate from state p to p', S(p, p'), can be then

calculated by

S ,2π ′

(2.22)

where ΔE is any possible change in the carrier’s energy caused by the scattering event [53].

Depending on the nature of scattering, the relaxation time can then be calculated using:

1, , for isotropic scattering (2.23)

44

1, 1 cos α , for elastic scattering (2.24)

where α is the polar angle between the incident and scattered carrier. The total relaxation time, τ,

can be approximated using Mattheissen’s rule assuming individual scattering rates, τi, are

independent [53]:

1 1 (2.25)

2.3.2.1 Coulombic Scattering

Carriers in the inversion layer can be affected by the electric field of ionized impurities

present in the channel through Coulombic scattering. Screening results in a decaying exponential

perturbation potential exp(-r/LD)/r [53]. The screening length, LD, is also known as the Debye

length which is inversely proportional to the square root of channel doping. In general, this type

of scattering tends to deflect carriers at very small angles. When the carrier density is very high,

LD is very small and the potential is strongly screened and the scattering is isotropic. Using the

screened potential, Brooks and Herring showed that the momentum relaxation time is

proportional to E3/2, where E is the carrier’s kinetic energy [59]. In other word, carriers with

higher kinetic energy (at higher gate overdrive or higher operation temperature) are less

influenced by the ionized impurities. Theoretical and experimental results suggest that the

Coulombic scattering limited mobility is proportional to the inversion carrier density and

inversely related to the background doping concentration [4, 60]. Carriers can also be scattered

by interface traps at the dielectric/semiconductor interface. In FD-SOI, multi-gate and nanowire

45

MOSFETs, as the channel is lightly-doped or undoped, the coulombic scattering due to the

ionized impurities is significantly suppressed. However, the mobility can be degraded by the

scattering of the carriers from the interface states at the Silicon/dielectric or Si/buried oxide

interface.

2.3.2.2 Surface Roughness Scattering

In MOSFETs with thermally grown oxide were oxidation leaves a relatively rough surface on

an atomic scale, carriers can be scattered by the fluctuations of the confining potential along the

channel direction. This leads to sub-band fluctuation and is often called surface roughness

scattering. For multi-gate and nanowire devices where the channel is defined by non-ideal

lithography and reactive ion-etching, this type of scattering becomes very important and can

severely degrade the carrier transport. While this effect is negligible at lower overdrives, its

effects are more pronounced at higher overdrive voltages where the confined carriers are very

close to the dielectric-channel interface. The related perturbing potential, USR, is usually modeled

by a random fluctuation function, Δ(r), and the average vertical electric field, Eav:

∆ (2.26)

Δ(r) is the autocorrelation function of interface roughness and is usually approximated by

a Gaussian function in the form of:

∆ ∆ exp (2.27)

46

where Δ and L are the height and correlation length of surface roughness, respectively [61].

Under the assumption of single sub-band occupation, the relaxation time of surface roughness

scattering, τSR (p), is given by:

1 Δ1 exp

21 (2.28)

In the extreme limit where the electron wavefunction is much larger than the correlation length,

µSR (∆.L.Eav)-2. It has been experimentally observed that for electrons on (100) Si, the mobility

has stronger Eeff dependency, i.e. Eeff-2.6 [62]. Here, the average electric field is interpreted

similar to the effective vertical field, Eeff, which is proportional to the inversion charge density.

Moreover, the experimental results provided in Ref. [62] indicate that surface roughness limited

mobility for (110) and (111) electrons and (100) holes have Eeff-1.5, Eeff

-1.0 and Eeff-1.3 dependence,

respectively. This non-parabolic relationship can be attributed to the large correlation length

comparable to the carrier’s workfunction which leads to the Eav dependence of the integral of

equation (2.28). However, the above hypothesis was shown to fail by low temperature

measurements. In summary, the inversion charge density or Eeff dependence of surface roughness

limited mobility for carriers on non-(100) planes is complicated and can not simply be modeled

by the height and correlation length of the Gaussian’s fluctuation function.

2.3.2.3 Phonon Scattering and Confinement

A major source of scattering in semiconductors originates from interaction of the electron

wavefunction with crystal lattice vibrations which are quantum mechanically described by

47

phonons. Due to periodic nature of lattice, vibrational lattice waves have similar properties to

electronic Bloch function. Acoustic phonons have relatively low energies and approximately

linear relationship to the lattice wave vector, β, while the optical phonon have energies in the

order of a few tens of electron volts and are almost independent of β. For acoustic phonons

which displace neighbor atoms in the same direction, the interaction potential, UAP, is

proportional the strain, or ∂u/∂x (u is the displacement). On the other hand, for optical phonons

which displace neighbor atoms in the opposite direction, the interaction potential, UOP, is

proportional to the displacement [53]. When a carrier interacts with a phonon, both its energy

and momentum are conserved. For intra-valley scattering where the carriers remain in the same

valley after scattering, the phonons involved are only those with wave vectors near the center of

the Brillouin zone. Since the change in the carrier energy is often negligible compared to the

carrier’s energy, kBT, acoustic phonon scattering is considered to be an elastic process. However,

optical phonon scattering involves a phonon with energy comparable or larger than the carrier’s

energy and can not be considered an elastic process, unless the carriers have very high energies.

Using phonon deformation potentials and considering the conservation of energy and

momentum, Fermi’s Golden Rule can be invoked to calculate the phonon scattering rate:

S , C12

12 2

(2.29)

where Nβ is the number phonons, ω is the phonon angular frequency and v is the carrier velocity.

The prefactor Cβ is given by:

Ω for acoustic phonons and

Ω for optical phonons (2.30)

48

where DA and DO are acoustic and optical phonon deformation potentials, vs is the sound

velocity, and ωO is the optical phonon frequency. The acoustic and optical phonon relaxation

times are then given by equations (2.31) and (2.32), respectively.

1 (2.31)

12

12

12

(2.32)

where cl is the elastic constant and gc is the density of states. It can be seen that for both cases,

scattering rates are proportional to the density of states. For electrons in the conduction band of

semiconductors such as Si or Ge where the conduction band consists of multiple energetically

equivalent valleys, both types of scattering, acoustic and optical, are important. Similar equations

and arguments can be used for such inter-valley phonon scatterings. For Si, carriers with higher

energies have shorter relaxation time.

Carriers can be quantum mechanically confined in infinite quantum wells or quasi-triangular

wells associated with the MOSFET inversion layer. For MOS inversion layer, the shape of the

quantum well can be numerically calculated using self-consistent Schrödinger-Poisson’s

equation. For such two-dimensional carriers, momentum conservation only applies in the plane

and the phonon scattering rate is given by

S , |If β | , (2.33)

where Ifi is called form factor, and z and denote the confinement and in-plane directions,

respectively [53]. The inter-sub-band acoustic phonon scattering rate is given by

49

1 1 (2.34)

1| | (2.35)

where F(z) is the envelope function of the confined factor and Wfi describes the effective extent

of the interaction in the confinement direction. In addition, the scattering rate is proportional to

the two-dimensional density of states. Similar relation can be derived for inter-valley scattering

rates. The resulting acoustic phonon-limited mobility is:

(2.36)

with W, width of inversion layer defined as [60, 61]:

163 12

/1132

// (2.37)

Here, mz is the effective mass along the confinement direction, Ndpl is the background doping

and Ns is the inversion charge density. As a result, phonon limited mobility is proportional to Ns-

1/3. Figure 2.4 illustrates the schematic of sub-band structure of 2D electrons for (a) a bulk

MOSFET and (b) thin-body SOI [63]. Unlike bulk MOSFET, the tail of electron or hole

wavefunction is confined by the physical thickness of the Si layer which leads to phonon limited

mobility reduction as the thickness of SOI is decreased. As a result, monotonic hole mobility

reduction is observed with decreasing Si thickness [64, 65]. However, a different trend is

observed for electron mobility of ultra-thin-body SOI with body thickness in the range of ~ 3 to

5 nm. For SOI thickness around 5 nm, further decrease of Si thickness down to ~3 nm is shown

50

to enhance the electron mobility, due to increased separation of the subbands and reduced inter-

subband phonon scattering [64].

Figure 2.4: Schematic sub-band structures of two-dimensional electrons for bulk and ultra-thin-body SOI MOSFETs. Structural confinement of the inversion layer in ultra-thin-body SOI MOSFETs decreases the average thickness of the inversion layer (Zav) as well as phonon-limited mobility and increases the inversion layer capacitance and threshold voltage (After Uchida et al. [63]).

2.3.2.4 Thickness Fluctuation Scattering

In ultra-thin body SOI MOSFETs, III-V quantum wells or nanowires, the energy level of

confined subbands is a strong function of the channel thickness. As a result, any atomic scale

change in the thickness of channel can significantly affect the subband levels and lead to

scattering of the carriers. This type of scattering is called thickness fluctuation scattering [64]

and is schematically shown in Figure 2.5. The related scattering potential, UTF, is given by:

∆ (2.38)

where t is the channel thickness, E is the subband energy level, and ∆ is the fluctuation function,

as described in section 2.3.2.2. For a one-dimensional quantum well, similar to a particle in box

51

problem, the energy levels are proportional to t-2. This results in a thickness fluctuation limited

mobility, μTF, of the form:

(2.39)

which has been experimentally observed for ultra-thin-body SOI, SiGe or III-V MOSFETs [64],

[66-69]. In the case of top-down fabricated Si nanowires with relatively rougher surface

compared to planar SOI, this scattering may be a determining factor of the overall mobility

behavior.

Figure 2.5: Schematic of (left) interface-roughness induced thickness fluctuation scattering and (right) variation of conduction band due to thickness fluctuation scattering in ultra-thin-body SOI channels (After Ref. [64]).

2.3.2.5 Remote Phonon Scattering

As transistors are scaled, thermally grown SiO2 can no longer meet the off-state and leakage

requirements. High-κ dielectrics have been studied as a replacement for SiO2 and have been in

production since the 45 nm technology node [15]. In general, the dielectric constant of a material

originates from the contribution of the ionic and electronic polarization. The electronic

polarization is inversely proportional to the direct bandgap of the material. The electronic effect

52

is negligible for dielectrics, where their bandgaps are naturally much larger than semiconductors.

Therefore the ionic polarization dominates the high-κ behavior of dielectrics. The large dielectric

behavior of high-κ materials is due to the highly polarizable metal-oxide bonds. Unlike “hard”

Si-O bonds in SiO2, polarization of these “soft” metal-O (or N) bonds can screen the external

field and increase the dielectric permittivity [70]. Wang and Mahan showed that electrons at the

interface between semiconductor and dielectric can couple with the surface optical (SO) modes,

arising from the longitudinal-optical (LO) modes on the insulator at the Si/insulator interface

[71]. The coupling potential is given by:

1 1 (2.40)

where εs∞ is the optical permittivity of the semiconductor, εox

0 and εox∞ are static and optical

permittivities of insulator, respectively. Equation (2.40) is similar to the Polarized Optical

Phonon (POP) scattering where the deformation of the lattice by phonons perturbs the dipole

moment between atoms which results in an electric field that scatters carriers [53]. However, in

this type of scattering, inversion layer electrons are scattered by “image-charge effects” at the

semiconductor/dielectric interface which affects the decay of the dipole field of the insulator

phonons away from the bulk of the insulator. This scattering is called remote phonon scattering

and has a large impact on the carrier’s mobility. For SiO2, the factor is relatively

small. In addition, for SiO2 ωSO ≈150 mV, and it is very unlikely for thermal electrons to emit

such a large energy. For the high-κ dielectrics, ions can only respond at lower frequencies and

therefore the high-frequency response is purely electronic. This large ionic response at low-

frequencies results in a large static dielectric constant (large ), but the factor

becomes large which degrades the carrier’s mobility.

53

Figure 2.6: (a) Calculated effective electron mobility of Si inversion layers of MOS system with insulators indicated. Remote scattering with surface optical phonons, anisotropic scattering with acoustic phonons and empirical scattering with surface roughness have been considered (b) Calculated total electron mobility in the inversion layer of a HfO2 /SiO2 /Si system as a function of thickness of the interfacial SiO2 layer for the three indicated values of the electron concentration in the inversion layer. The horizontal lines at the far right are the asymptotic limits of infinite oxide thickness (Results from Fischetti et al. [70]).

Figure 2.6 (a) shows the theoretical electron effective mobility from Fischetti et al. for

various dielectrics with ideal interface (i.e. no defect, fixed charge or interface trap) [70].

Mobility degradation due to the remote phonon scattering can be seen for various dielectrics.

Moving the High-κ dielectric farther away from the Si substrate using and interfacial SiO2 is

expected to significantly improve the electron mobility. The thin SiO2 interfacial layer reduces

the scattering strength of the High-κ SO modes by a factor ~exp ( -2KF tox), where KF is the

Fermi wavevector which is proportional to Ns1/2 for 2D electron gas. As a result, as shown in

Figure 2.6 (b), for small Ns, unreasonably thick oxides are required to boost electron mobility.

However, at large Ns, even a thin 0.5-1.0 nm of interfacial oxide is sufficient to reduce remote

phonon scattering. As another solution, Chau et al. experimentally demonstrated that the use of

midgap metal-gate electrodes (such as TiN) with higher electron density than depleted poly-Si

54

can effectively screen and reduce the remote phonons and significantly improve the electron

mobility [72].

2.4 Transport Enhancement Options for Multi-Gate MOSFETs

This section overviews the impact of various design and process options such as surface and

channel direction, strain engineering and utilizing new channel materials and process

technologies on the transport in planar and multi-gate and provides guidelines to boost their

carrier transport.

2.4.1 Surface Crystallographic Orientation and Channel Direction

In multi-gate and nanowire transistors, inversion carriers are in close proximity to various

surface crystallographic orientations due to the three-dimensional geometry of the channel. As a

result, carrier transport in different surface orientations and directions can be significantly

different due to distinct scattering mechanisms and conductivity effective masses for various

planes. Figure 2.7 shows the experimental results for electron and hole effective mobilities as a

function of inversion charge density for (100), (111) and (110) surfaces and for <110> and

<100> channel directions [73]. While the (100) surface has the highest electron mobility, it

55

shows the lowest hole mobility. The opposite trend is observed for (110) surfaces which have

recently been considered as a transport booster for p-MOSFETs [74-77].

Figure 2.7: Effective electron and hole mobility of Si as a function of inversion charge density for (100), (111) and (110) surfaces. Mobility is isotropic (direction independent) for (100) and (111) surfaces. Among all surface/directions, (100) and (110)/<110> have the highest electron and hole mobility, respectively (Results from Irie et al. [73]).

To further elucidate this, the equi-energy conduction band valleys for (100) and (110) are

plotted in Figure 2.8. For (100) surfaces, transport is isotropic (independent of the channel

direction) and the conductivity effective mass is determined from 4 valleys with effective mass

of mt = 0.19 m0 and two valleys with effective mass of ml = 0.98 m0, where mt, ml, and m0 are

the transverse, longitudinal and free electron masses. For (110) surface with the current along

<110> direction, 4 valleys with ml and 2 valleys with mt contribute to the total conductivity

effective mass, which qualitatively describes why electron (110) mobility is less than on the

(100) surface.

56

Figure 2.8: (a) Schematic of Si conduction band’s equienergy ellipsoids, displaying Δ2 and Δ4 valleys; (b) Equienergy valleys of Si on (110) surface. Four valleys with heavy ml and two valleys with light mt contribute to the conduction along <110> direction; (c) Equienergy valleys of Si on (100) surface. Two valleys with heavy ml and four valleys with light mt contribute to the conduction along <100> or <110> direction, offering lower conductivity mass compared to (110) surface.

Figure 2.9: (Top) energy and (bottom) equienergy lines of the lowest-lying subbands (HH, LH and SO) along with the position of the Fermi level for (001), (011) and (111) relaxed Si surfaces. Spin degeneracy is lifted away from the center of the zone, so that the density of states given subband depends on spin variables (Results from Fischetti et al. [65]).

57

The understating of hole transport is generally more complicated due to the strong anisotropy

and non-parabolicity of the heavy-hole (HH) and light-hole (LH) bands and small value of the

spin-orbit (SO) splitting in the valence band. Figure 2.9 shows the k.p calculated hole subband

energy as a function of surface field, Fs, and the equi-energy lines in the lowest-lying HH, LH

and SO subbands for (100), (111) and (110) surfaces [65]. For the (110) surface, the largest

energy splitting between the lowest two subbands among various surface orientations and the

light effective mass along <110> direction under strong quantum confinement effects are

suggested mechanisms for enhanced hole mobility. In addition, for (110) surfaces, the observed

enhanced hole mobility of the <110> over <100> can be justified by the lighter effective mass

along <110> direction.

Based on the above discussion and the fact that gate-all-around nanowire channels may

involve transport along various surface orientations, it is expected that GAA nanowire p-

MOSFETs will show transport enhancement over planar (100) MOSFETs. Chapter 6 provides

some experimental evidence for this mobility enhancement. However, as can be experimentally

seen in chapter 4, GAA nanowire n-MOSFETs suffer from lower mobility than (100) planar

devices. Strain engineering is indeed needed to recover the electron mobility degradation by the

non-(100) planes.

2.4.2 Strain Engineering

It is well known that biaxial tension can improve the electron mobility of planar (100)

MOSFETs [8, 78, 79]. Figure 2.10 shows the schematic of the conduction band for electrons on

58

the (100) and (110) surfaces. For (100) surface, biaxial and <110> oriented uniaxial strains shift

the Δ2 valleys to lower energies and Δ4 valleys to higher energy, and repopulate electrons in the

Δ2 valleys, with lower effective mass. As a consequence, inter-valley phonon scattering is

significantly reduced and the mobility is enhanced by ~2X [54]. For (110) surface, as shown in

Figure 2.10, biaxial tension repopulates the electron in the Δ4 valleys whose energy is lowered by

strain. The effective mass of these four valleys along <110> is ml which doesn’t provide the

desired enhancement. However, the optimum mobility enhancement for biaxially strained (110)

surface is along <100> direction where lighter mt dominates the conductivity effective mass.

Utilizing uniaxial tension along <110> direction, electrons repopulate to the two valleys with

lower energy reduced by strain and lower effective mass (mt) [80, 81].

Figure 2.10: Schematic of electron repopulation in the conduction band equienergy valleys of (a) (100) Si under <110> uniaxial or biaxial tension, (b) (110) Si under biaxial tension and (c) (110) Si under <110> uniaxial tension. The current direction for all cases is along <110>, which is favorable for all cases except case (b) where its mobility-enhanced direction is shown.

In addition to electron repopulation, unlike biaxial strain, uniaxial strain benefits from

continuous reduction of effective mass by applying strain. This is shown in Figure 2.11 (a) where

the calculated relative change in the effective mass in the direction parallel and perpendicular to

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the channel is plotted as a function of uniaxial strain in the [110] direction (open symbols: tight-

binding, solid lines and filled symbols: pseudopotential method) [58, 82, 83]. As a consequence

of continuous reduction in the effective mass, for sufficiently high level of strain, uniaxial strain

is expected to display a larger mobility enhancement factor than biaxial strain [84].

Figure 2.11 (b) shows the plot of relative change in ballistic velocity as a function of relative

change in mobility for biaxial and <100> and <110> uniaxial strained Si [58, 82]. For uniaxial

tension along <110> direction, a direct correlation between relative change in ballistic velocity

and mobility is observed. For biaxial strained-Si, since the mobility enhancement is governed by

reduction in phonon scattering rather than effective mass (recall equations (2.16) and (2.17)), the

ballistic velocity is slightly enhanced and the α parameter, as define in equation (2.18), is around

0.3.

Figure 2.11: (a) Relative change in the Si effective mass in the direction parallel and perpendicular to a [110] uniaxial tension (open symbols: tight binding [82], filled symbols empirical pseudopotential [82], solid lines: empirical pseudopotential [83]); (b) Relative change in Si electron ballistic velocity vs. relative change in mobility for different strains (Results from Khakifirooz et al. [82]).

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Based on the above discussion, for GAA nanowire n-MOSFETs, uniaxial tension along

<110> direction is expected to improve the electron mobility of these MOSFETs, which is

degraded by the low-mobility non-(100) sidewall surfaces. In chapter 4, this effect is

experimentally investigated for GAA nanowire n-MOSFETs.

For hole transport on the (100) surface, theoretical results show that compressive strain (up to

~3 GPa) can enhance the hole mobility ~5.5X over unstrained devices [74]. Uniaxial strain (even

small levels) along <110> is shown to significantly reduce the effective mass [82]. For (110)

surface, uniaxial strain along <110> direction is shown to improve the hole mobility of both

<110> and <111>-oriented channels [74, 85]. The reported mobility enhancement was larger

along <110> direction with an unusual Ns dependency, hypothesized by modulation of effective

mass only along <110> direction and only at low Ns [85].

For bulk (100) surface, biaxial strain lifts the LH and HH degeneracy and results in reduction

of phonon scattering. In addition, it is expected to repopulate the holes to the LH band which

benefits from effective mass reduction. However, in a quantized MOSFET, LH subbands move

to higher levels which is in the opposite direction of the band splitting by biaxial strain. While

there is some mobility enhancement due to reduced phonon scattering at lower Ns, the

enhancement disappears at higher Ns.

Application of biaxial strain to suspended nanowires is not technologically feasible. While Si

nanowires with high-hole-mobility non-(100) surface are considered as the transport booster over

bulk (100) devices, uniaxial compression along (110) is expected to further boost their hole

transport. Recent results by Li et al. shows +85% enhancement in short channel drain current of

GAA nanowire p-MOSFETs by uniaxial compression [88]. Figure 2.12 summarizes the

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simulated hole and electron mobilities for (100) and (110) silicon substrates as a function of

stress [74]. A uniaxial strain of 3 GPa along <110> direction can continuously increase the

electron mobility up to 2.3X for (100) and up to 4.5X for (110) surface. Moreover, a uniaxial

compression of 3 GPa along <110> can enhance the hole mobility by 5.7X for (100) and 1.9X

for (110) surface. In addition, it can be seen that the orientation dependence of both electron and

hole mobilities is significantly reduced at very high-levels of uniaxial stress.

Figure 2.12: Simulated hole and electron mobility for (100) and (110) silicon substrates as a function of uniaxial stress along <110> (Results from Packan et al. [74]).

2.4.3 Technological Implementation: New Materials and Processes

Strain-engineering methods are generally categorized into global and local strain

technologies. In the former, substrates are globally strained to another physical or virtual

substrate. Using this technique, biaxially strained-Si on bulk [8] or insulator [89, 90, 91] or

compressively strained-Si1-xGex (0 < x ≤ 1) on bulk [62, 92, 93, 94] or insulator [6, 95, 96, 97]

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are created. The bulk process involves growth of strained-Si or SiGe using heteroepitaxy [98].

The “on-insulator” or “SOI-like” process can be realized using a bond and etch back technique

[90], smart-cut [99], Ge condensation by oxidation [97] or direct growth on thin-body SOI

substrates [95]. As the lattice size of SiGe is larger than Si, biaxial compressively strained-Si can

not be fabricated using this technique.

In the local or process-induced stress engineering, the strain is locally applied to the device.

SiGe-embedded source/drain [9, 14, 15], SiC- embedded source/drain [11, 101], contact etch

stop liners with tensile [102] or compressive strain [103, 104], Shallow-Trench-Isolation [105]

and stress memorization [106] are proposed by various groups for planar devices. However,

there are few reports on the application of strain to multi-gate and particularly GAA structures.

Verheyen et al. showed that SiGe-embedded source/drain improves the current of 50 nm-long p-

MOS FinFETs by 25% [107]. Liow et al. demonstrated 80% current enhancement for Ge-

embedded tri-gate (W = 30 nm) short channel p-FETs [108]. Li et al. applied this method to 25

nm-long GAA NW and +85% p-MOS current enhancement was observed [88]. In some other

techniques, strain was applied by bending the suspended channel. Using thermal oxidation of

suspended long Si beams, Moselund et al. demonstrated “bended GAA” n-MOSFETs with

enhanced mobility over non-suspended structures [109, 110]. In other work, Si nanowires were

bent by metal gate stressor process [111].

The local strain engineering effectiveness in planar technology is reduced as the device pitch

size is aggressively scaled, mostly due to the limited physical space available for the local

stressors. Therefore, new schemes and approaches for strain engineering become more vital. A

biaxially strained substrate can be etched preferentially in one direction to asymmetrically relax

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the strain in the lateral direction. Figure 2.13 schematically illustrates this concept. The

relaxation is believed to be elastic and free of any defect. Using Raman spectroscopy and stress

TCAD simulations, Lei et al. showed that uniaxial strained-Si can be achieved by patterning 30

nm thick strained-Si directly-on-insulator (SSDOI) substrates into 90 nm wide fins [112]. Using

nano-beam diffraction (NBD) technique, Usuda et al. mapped the strain in the Si fin and

confirmed that stress is uniaxial [113, 114]. FinFETs and and tri-gate [18,19, 115-118] have been

fabricated using this technique with enhanced long channel mobility and short channel current

drive due to uniaxial tension along the fin. Using a similar technique, uniaxially strained-Si1-xGex

(x ≤ 0.7) p-MOSFETs are reported with more than 3X mobility enhancement over planar devices

[119, 120]. Recently, Tachi et al. have demonstrated fabrication of gate-all-around nanowire p-

MOSFETs with relaxed and bent SiGe nanowire channels [121]. However, they observed low

enhancement factor for bent strained-SiGe channels and no enhancement (degradation) for

relaxed SiGe nanowires.

Figure 2.13: Schematic of the nano-patterning induced lateral relaxation mechanism. Arrows with solid border show the direction of the strain and arrows with dashed line shows the lateral relaxation direction. Biaxial stress is preferentially relaxed in the transverse (lateral) direction.

64

In chapter 4, the performance of the GAA n-MOSFETs with uniaxial tensile strain are

investigated. On the other hand, germanium channels have higher hole mobility compared to

bulk Si and can be considered as promising candidates for multi-gate GAA NW transistors.

However, there is no reliable top-down fabrication process to realize defect free Ge nanowires

and most of the reported data are based on bottom-up fabrication which has little interest for

CMOS applications [122-124]. A reasonable CMOS compatible approach is the Si/Ge core-shell

nanowire growth which can be achieved by selective epitaxy of Ge on Si fins or nanowire [125].

However, this method requires a mature defect-free germanium growth. Moreover, this method

is technologically limited by the very low critical-thickness of epitaxial Ge on Si and strongly

depends on the shape of core-Si nanowire. The preliminary results of fabrication and transport

characterization of top-down fabricated Si/Ge core-shell nanowire p-MOSFETs are presented in

Appendix F.

2.5 Mobility Extraction for Gate-All-Around Nanowires MOSFETs

This section describes the effective mobility extraction methodology that is used in this thesis

for planar and nanowire MOSFETs. The low-field electron mobility of a MOSFET is given by

(2.41)

where Leff and Weff are the effective gate length and width of device, gd = ∂ID/∂VDS is the drain

conductance, Qinv and Q'inv is the total and density of inversion charge, in units of C and C/cm2,

65

respectively [4]. For bulk and planar devices, effective mobility is often expressed as a function

of inversion charge density (cm-2) or effective electric field, Eeff (MV/cm) defined as:

1 (2.42)

where Q'dep is the depletion charge density and εs is the dielectric constant of the channel. The η

factor is a key parameter in determining Eeff and was initially assumed to be a constant factor,

1/2 for electrons and 1/3 for holes [4, 62]. To maintain universality of mobility, Irie et al. showed

that η is indeed a function of Eeff , surface orientation and channel direction [73]. For nanowire

MOSFETs with various surface orientation and geometry-dependent field, the expression of

mobility in terms of Eeff is extremely complicated and the mobility is usually expressed as a

function of inversion charge density. In derivation of equation (2.41), the diffusion current (

∂Qinv/∂x) was assumed to be negligible which is satisfied in practice for VDS in the range of 10 to

50 mV [126]. To extract the mobility of planar devices, typically a very long device (Leff ~ 50-

200 µm) is used to vanish the effects of external parasitic resistance and gd can be simply

presented by ID / VDS. Test structures have been proposed to cancel the series resistance of the

ultra-thin-body SOI devices, by means of addition of external tabs [127]. In addition, recessed

channel has also been proposed to locally thin the SOI device and leave the channel thick enough

in the vicinity of source/drain, to minimize the effects of the series resistance [63]. However,

knowing the external series resistance, Rext, corrected gd can be written as:

(2.43)

The inversion charge is given by:

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(2.44)

where Ninv is the inversion charge density (in cm-2 units) and CGC is the intrinsic gate-to-channel

capacitance and can be directly extracted using split-CV method of a long cannel device. The

split C-V of devices can be measured at frequencies in the range of 1 kHz to 1 MHz, using a

semiconductor parameter analyzer. At lower frequencies, which are closer to the quasi-static

device operation, dielectric interface traps can respond leading to overestimation of the inversion

charge. Measurements at higher frequencies overcome this problem and also benefit from less

measurement noise. However, the measured capacitance can be misinterpreted due to the

external resistance dependence of the measured impedance. As a result, the measurements in this

thesis were performed in the range of 40-100 kHz where the aforementioned problems were

minimized.

Figure 2.14: (a) Effective hole mobility vs. inversion charge density (Ninv) for various hypothetical voltage shift between capacitance and current measurements (ΔV) due to several mechanisms such as measurement stress effects; (b) Relative mobility error (with respect to the case with no shift) as a function of ΔV, for Ninv=1012, 4×1012 and 7×1012 cm-2. While large error is observed for low Ninv, the error is less than 2% at high inversion charge densities.

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It is very important to measure the I-V and C-V on the same device. For devices with non-

ideal high-κ dielectric the I-V and C-V characteristics show a finite hysteresis, similar

measurement sweep direction should be chosen. In other words, any shift in the threshold shift

due to hysteresis or unstable dielectric condition as a result of measurement stress leads to

inaccurate mobility extraction. To better understand this, Figure 2.14(a) shows a plot of hole

mobility in a thin-body planar SOI p-MOSFET, for various voltage shifts, ΔV, between the C-V

and I-V measurements. The relative mobility error for various inversion charge densities is

plotted in Figure 2.14 (b). While negligible error (less than 2%) is observed at high inversion

charge density, relatively large error (~15%) is observed for low inversion charge density

(Ninv=1×1012 cm-2) for ΔV = ±40 mV.

Nanowire MOSFETs have generally small capacitance originating from the nano-scale size

of the channel. In addition, due to the process issues such as limited e-beam write field size and

long exposure time for e-beam lithography as well as stiction issues, fabrication of very long-

channel nanowires (in the scale used to characterize the mobility of planar devices) is not

practical. Medium channel lengths in the order of a micron are feasible. The importance of the

parasitic capacitances (Cpar) and Rext becomes more serious as Cpar is comparable to CGC in

medium channel-length devices. Fig. 2.15 (a) shows the measured split C-V characteristics of

medium-size planar devices with targeted gate length or mask length (LG) in the range of 0.4 to 2

µm. The plot of maximum capacitance (Cmax) and minimum capacitance (Cpar) as a function of

LG is shown in Figure 2.15 (b). It can be seen that Cpar is independent of the gate length. For the

device with LG = 0.4 µm, it is observed that Cpar is about 25% of the total capacitance which

leads to overestimation of the inversion charge by 25% and therefore underestimation of

mobility by ~20%. The difference between LG and the Leff, ΔL, can be extracted by intersecting

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the extrapolated plots of Cmax and Cpar of the planar devices, as shown in Figure 2.15 (b). For

nanowire MOSFETs, to acquire measurable capacitance signal, multi-nanowire device can be

fabricated. However, the parasitics also scaled similar to intrinsic nanowire capacitance which

adds more difficulty to the mobility extraction. As discussed in chapter 4 and 6, nanowire

devices have higher capacitive parasitics compared to planar devices due to the overlap of the

gate on the source/drain anchors.

Figure 2.15: (a) Measured capacitance of planar SOI MOSFETs with Al2O3/WN gate using split C-V method for devices with mask gate length, Lmask = 0.4, 0.6, 0.8, 1, 1.2, 1.6 and 2 μm. For Lmask = 0.4 μm, the parasitic component (Cpar) contributes about one fourth of the total measured capacitance. (b) Plot of maximum capacitance (Cmax) and the minimum parasitic capacitance (Cpar, min) vs. Lmask. Symbols are measured data and solid lines are the best fits to the measured data. The difference between the mask length and the effective gate length (ΔL) was extracted by intersecting the two fitted lines.

Based on the above discussion, the effective mobility extraction of nanowire MOSFETs

requires careful considerations on the device design and parasitics. Consider a design where two

nanowire MOSFETs with the same number of nanowire (N) and similar cross-section, have

similar parasitic resistance (i.e. similar contact design rules and S/D materials) and capacitance

(i.e. similar fringing, gate-to-pad and gate-to-source/drain overlaps), similar threshold voltage

and mobility but two different nanowire or mask gate lengths (Li), as schematically shown in

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Figure 2.16. The total channel resistance, Ri and total capacitance, Ci, of the ith device can be

written as:

, , (2.45)

, , (2.46)

Figure 2.16: (a) Schematic of the gate-all-around nanowire test structures for effective mobility extraction, utilizing two FETs with the same number of nanowires (N) and similar cross-section (central schematic), similar parasitic resistance (i.e. similar contact design rules and S/D materials) and capacitance (i.e. similar fringing, gate-to-pad and gate-to-source/drain overlaps).

By taking two MOSFETs with various Li, and subtracting the total resistance capacitance, it

is possible to cancel the parasitics and extract the intrinsic mobility of a device with differential

L = L1 –L2. Using this technique (so called 2FET or double Lm method [128]), the effective

mobility can be calculated using equation (2.47) and fully written in terms of experimentally

measurable parameters:

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μ. .

(2.47)

. . . (2.48)

Equations (2.47) and (2.48) can be corrected for any small shift in the threshold voltage of

two devices under test, simply via shifting both current and capacitances by the difference in

their threshold voltages.

Inversion charge density evaluation is a subject of controversy in nanowire MOSFETs.

Uniform dielectric is required to nearly equally invert the carriers over the entire nanowire

perimeter, which is not often achieved using thermally-grown or low-temperature oxides. The

effective nanowire width, Weff, used in equation (2.41) can be considered as the perimeter of

nanowire (Figure 2.16) to the first order estimation, and can be measured by Transmission

Electron Microscopy (TEM) analysis.

2.6 Chapter Summary

Basic theory and physics of the MOSFETs that are used in this thesis were overviewed in this

chapter. Following the discussion on the scaling theory of the MOSFETs, undoped Si nanowires

with relaxed channel thickness and excellent immunity to short channel effects are very

promising candidates for future low-power CMOS generations. In addition, the importance of

transport and mobility investigation for Si nanowires was discussed. Common scattering

mechanisms that affect the mobility of MOSFETs were reviewed. As multigate and nanowire

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channels consist of several crystallographic planes, the role of surface orientation and channel

direction on the electron and hole transport was briefly reviewed. After a brief introduction to the

physics of strain engineering for various orientations, technological methods to apply strain on

planar, multi-gate and nanowire devices were reviewed. Based on the discussion of the surface

orientation and the few experimental results reported on multi-gate devices, sidewalls (even

ideally processed) degrade the performance of Si nanowire n-MOSFETs, while they can exhibit

the opposite trend for Si nanowire p-MOSFETs. As a result, uniaxial strain engineering along

<110> direction, particularly for n-MOSFETs, is expected to recover some of the mobility

degradation. Finally, the methodology used in this thesis to extract the mobility of Si nanowires

was extensively discussed in section 2.5.

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73

Chapter 3 Asymmetrically Strained-Si and Ge channels

The asymmetric strain engineering of globally-strained substrates is investigated in this

chapter. Two types of stress-engineered channels are introduced: asymmetric compressively

strained Ge and tensile suspended strained Si nanowires. Fabrication and detailed strain

characterization of these channels are discussed in section 3.2 and 3.3. Finally, a method to

vertically stack the suspended strained Si nanowires is demonstrated.

3.1 Biaxial to Uniaxial Strain Transformation

Globally biaxial-strained substrates, such as tensile Strained-Si-Directly-On-Insulator

(SSDOI) or strained-Si/strained-SiGe (Ge)/strained-Si Heterostructure-On-Insulator (SiGe (Ge)

HOI), can be fabricated by epitaxial growth of multiple SiGe and strained-Si layers on bulk Si,

followed by layer transfer to an oxidized wafer by bonding and either hydrogen-induced

delamination or etch back of the undesired materials. The so called bond and etch-back

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technique was previously demonstrated for SSDOI [90] and SiGe [6] or Ge HOI substrates

[129], as schematically shown in Figure 3.1.

Figure 3.1: Schematic process flow of modified bond and etch-back technique to fabricate biaxial tensile SSDOI or compressive Ge HOI, after Gomez, et al. [129].

Figure 3.2: Schematic diagram of fabrication of highly asymmetric, virtually uniaxial, strained-Si and strained-Ge nano-structures by unilateral relaxation of SSDOI and Ge HOI substrates.

Although the in-plane strain in these as-fabricated substrates is biaxial, patterning induced

lateral relaxation can be utilized to transform the strain to uniaxial tension or uniaxial

75

compression, for SSDOI or Ge-HOI, respectively. Figure 3.2 schematically illustrates this

concept. It is worth mentioning that this type of strain relaxation is elastic and free of any

crystalline defects. This transformation is important as uniaxial strain lowers the conductivity

effective mass, reducing all scattering mechanisms and increasing the thermal velocity which

improves the ballisticity and hence the current drive in short channel devices.

3.2 Asymmetrically Strained-Ge Nano-Bars

3.2.1 Fabrication and Metrology

Starting substrates were strained-Si/strained-Ge/strained-Si HOI substrates which were

fabricated utilizing a bond and etch-back technique as described in Ref. [129]. Raman

measurements on these unpatterned HOI substrates indicate very high levels of strain in the ultra-

thin Si and Ge films (~1.8% biaxial tension and 1.8% compression, respectively). All epitaxial

layers were grown to be pseudomorphic to a relaxed SiGe virtual substrate with 50% Ge content.

The strained-Si cap layer was thinned down to ~4 nm using SC1 (5:1:1 H2O:NH4OH:H2O2)

solution at 80°C followed by 1 minute in 50:1 H2O:HF solution. Figure 3.3 (a) shows a cross-

sectional Transmission Electron Microscopy (XTEM) image of the initial substrate after thinning

the strained-Si cap layer. The measured thickness of the strained-Si cap layer is approximately 4

nm and the thickness of the strained-Ge varies from 5 to 7 nm. These values are in good

agreement with the results of spectroscopic ellipsometry. After standard cleaning, scanning

electron-beam lithography with XR-1541 Hydrogen SilsesQuioxane (HSQ) negative-tone resist

(from Dow Corning™) was utilized to pattern the samples into gratings with various bar widths

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ranging from 300 nm down to 30 nm. The material characterization, optimization and process

development of HSQ is presented in Appendix A.

Figure 3.3: (a) Cross-sectional TEM image of strained-Ge HOI substrate. Tilted SEM images of (b) 100 nm and (c) 30 nm wide patterned strained-Ge HOI nano-bars prepared for stress metrology by UV micro-Raman spectroscopy (TEM Courtesy of M.D. Robertson).

To obtain a measurable Raman signal with acceptable signal to noise ratio (utilized for stress

characterization), dense patterns must be created. The pattern transfer was achieved by Reactive

Ion Etching (RIE) using Cl2/Ar precursors. Figure 3.3 (b) and (c) show sample Scanning

Electron Microscopy (SEM) images of the patterned HOI with different stripe widths of 30 and

100 nm.

3.2.2 Strain Characterization

UV Micro-Raman courtesy of Michael Canonico (Freescale) spectroscopy was used to

analyze the level of stress in the nano-scale strained-Si and strained-Ge layers [130, 131]. The

77

364 nm Ar-Ion and 325 nm He-Cd lines, both attenuated to minimize laser induced heating, were

used to measure the Si LO phonon from the strained-Si layer and the Ge LO phonon from the

strained-Ge layer, respectively. The 325 nm line is chosen for Ge scattering because in bulk

crystals, the Raman cross-section is resonantly enhanced by ~1.8X compared to 364 nm

excitation. Each Ge band was collected using a relatively long acquisition time of 30 minutes in

order to enhance the signal-to-noise ratio, and fitted with either Lorentzian or Exponentially

Modified Gaussian (EMG) line shapes. Since the HOI line widths are smaller than the laser spot

size (~0.4 μm diameter), spatially resolving the strain distribution is not possible. In addition,

resolving individual stress components using a micro-Raman geometry is difficult and often

impractical. Therefore, the analysis of the Raman data in this thesis is based on a planar stress

model, and we assumed phonon deformation coefficients consistent with uniform biaxial stress.

Figure 3.4: (a) Raman spectra (325 nm excitation) of the Ge LO phonon with overlaid Lorentzian fit for Ge HOI sample patterned into 30 nm, 50 nm, 100 nm and 300 nm-wide stripes. Dashed line is the signal from the relaxed Ge reference sample. For clarity, the Raman spectra and corresponding analytical fit are shifted vertically relative to one another (Raman courtesy of M. Canonico (Freescale)); (b) Extracted biaxial relaxation (solid lines) and Raman peak position (dashed lines) vs. bar width in strained-Ge layer.

78

Figure 3.4 (a) shows a series of Raman spectra of the Ge LO phonon in the strained-Ge

channel for the patterned long bars with widths ranging from 30 to 300 nm. The signal from a

bulk germanium substrate is also plotted as a reference. In this case, the average thickness of

strained-Ge is ~6 nm and the thickness of the strained-Si cap layer varies from 4 to 5 nm. From

this data, the shift in Raman peak position as a function of bar width can be extracted. The peak

position of the Ge mode and the calculated relaxation as a function of bar width is shown in Fig.

3.4 (b). The error bars are estimated from various sources such as XRD composition and

relaxation measurements for the 50% SiGe as-grown donor wafer, XRD composition of

nominally pure Ge HOI layer (courtesy M. Canonico, Freescale), phonon frequencies for

unstrained bulk Si, Ge, strained-Si and strained-Ge layers and uncertainties in phonon

deformation coefficients for Ge-Ge/SiGe and Si-Si/SiGe. As can be seen from Fig. 3.4 (b), the

relaxation in strained-Ge is increased by reducing the bar width and a relaxation of

approximately 45% (assuming biaxial compressive strain) is extracted for 30 nm-wide stripes.

Here, the relaxation values are calculated assuming the strained-Ge is fully strained, taking into

account the reduced Ge fraction due to inter-diffusion. A general trend of enhanced relaxation by

reducing the bar width is observed for all Si cap thicknesses, with more relaxation as the

thickness of strained-Si cap is increased [131]. The measured results are consistent with Finite-

Element (FE) simulations [131] and atomistic model of strain relaxation [132]. In addition,

simulation by Park et al. indicates that increasing Ge thickness assists lateral relaxation at

relatively wider bar widths. For example, for a Ge HOI substrate with 10 nm Ge layer and no Si

cap, pure uniaxial strain is predicted for 30 nm bar widths. However, increasing the Ge thickness

is practically limited by the low critical thickness of strained-Ge on Si [12, 68]. In addition,

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processing Ge HOI without a Si cap is challenging due to process sensitivity of ultra-thin Ge

layer.

3.3 Suspended uniaxially strained-Si nanowires

3.3.1 Fabrication of Strained-Si Nanowires

Starting material was 150 mm SSDOI wafers (with buried oxide thickness of ~400 nm),

strained to a virtual Si0.70Ge0.3 substrate. A modified bond and etch-back technique was used to

create 30% SSDOI substrates [133]. A final strained-Si thickness of ~18-20 nm was measured by

a UV laser interferometer calibrated by SIMS/TEM measurements. The fabrication process of

strained-Si nanowires is schematically shown in Figure 3.5. After spinning ~90 nm HSQ e-beam

resist, e-beam exposure was performed in a Raith150™ scanning e-beam lithography system

with process details given in appendix A. Multiple parallel nanowires ending on two pads were

exposed. The width of the wires was varied in the range of 20 to 80 nm. The nanowires were 2

μm long and the pads were 2 μm × 1 μm rectangles. The pitch size (distance between nanowire

centerlines) was 100 nm for 20, 25, 30, and 35 nm-wide nanowires and 120, 150, 180, and 200

nm for 40, 50, 60 and 80 nm-wide nanowires, respectively. The dose and pitch were optimized to

minimize proximity effects. The resist was developed in 25% Tetra-Methyl-Ammonium-

Hydroxide (TMAH) solution for 1 minute. High nanowire density is an important parameter to

obtain a measurable Raman signal. In order to improve the Raman signal-to-noise ratio for

nanowires with dimensions around 20 nm or less, ultra dense suspended strained-Si NWs were

fabricated utilizing a modified thin HSQ and a salty developer [134], with details provided in

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Appendix A. The strained-Si layer was then dry etched using Cl2/Ar in a reactive ion etcher

(Figure 3.5(b)). The nanowires were suspended by time-controlled partial etching of the buried

oxide (80 to 100 nm removed) in 100:1 HF solution. A schematic cross section and top view of

the suspended strained-Si nanowire fabrication process is shown in Figure 3.5 (c) and (d),

respectively. The tilted SEM micrographs of 25 nm-wide suspended nanowires in a 100 nm pitch

and ultra-dense 18 nm-wide suspended nanowires in a 40 nm pitch are shown in Figure 3.5 (e)

and (f), respectively.

Figure 3.5: Schematic process flow of suspended strained-Si nanowires: (a) after spinning e-beam resist, (b) after resist development and strained-Si reactive-ion etching, (c) after nanowire suspension in dilute HF, and (d) top-down view. (e) Tilted SEM image of the 20 nm wide strained-Si nanowires in a 100 nm pitch; (f) Tilted SEM image of the 18 nm wide ultra-dense strained-Si nanowires in a 40 nm pitch (inset: top view SEM).

3.3.2 Raman Characterization and Stress Mapping

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UV Micro-Raman spectroscopy courtesy of M. Canonico (Freescale) was used to analyze the

level of stress in the suspended strained-Si nanowire and pad regions. The UV spectrometer was

operated in additive mode using 325 nm He-Cd laser line. The UV laser power density was ~300

kW/cm2 and the beam diameter was ~ 0.4 μm. Figure 3.6 (a) shows the Raman spectra of the Si

LO phonon from a 40 μm × 40 μm patterned square region, which approximates the original

blanket SSDOI layer strain. The Raman spectrum of a bulk Si wafer is also shown for

comparison. The Si LO phonon frequency is observed to be red-shifted by -8.9 cm-1, equivalent

to 2.16 GPa biaxial stress [112, 133]. The measured stress is consistent with the nominal value

of 30% Ge (+ 1 at. % Ge) in the relaxed SiGe donor substrate.

Figure 3.6: (a) Raman spectra (courtesy of M. Canonico (Freescale)) of the Si LO phonon from unstrained bulk Si (dashed line) and the 40 μm square box (solid line). The measured Si peak shift is consistent with the strain expected in Si grown on a relaxed SiGe donor substrate with 30% Ge concentration. (b) Raman spectra at the center of suspended strained-Si nanowires (30 nm wide), displaying two peaks corresponding to bulk Si substrate (right) and nanowires (left) with a ~2.1 GPa uniaxial tension along the nanowires.

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Figure 3.6 (b) shows a typical Raman spectrum of the Si-Si LO phonon mode of suspended

30 nm-wide, 2 μm long strained-Si nanowires, at a location close to the center of Si nanowire. To

obtain such spectra, the laser was scanned from pad to pad in a direction parallel to the nanowire

length, as schematically shown in Figure 3.7 (b). The relevant Raman spectra for 30 nm wide

wires are shown in Figure 3.7 (a). Similar Raman spectra and total in-plane stress for the 18, 20,

25 and 40 nm wide nanowires are shown in Appendix B.

Figure 3.7: (a) Raman spectra (courtesy of M. Canonico (Freescale)) of the Si-Si LO phonon mode for 30 nm wide suspended strained-Si nanowires with pads attached to the oxide, as the laser is scanned from pad to pad in a direction parallel to the nanowire length , as shown in the schematic (b).

For 30 nm-wide nanowires with the spectra shown in Figure 3.7 (a), spectra #15 and #16

correspond to the Si substrate and spectrum #17-19 begins to show an asymmetry on the low

energy side. The broadening arises due to simultaneous illumination of the SSOI pad and

substrate. In spectra #20 and #21, the Si LO frequency further redshifts to ~515 cm-1 and the Si

substrate intensity diminishes as the laser beam scans across the pad. Beginning with spectrum

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#21, the peak frequency blueshifts slightly to ~516 cm-1 and the substrate signal reappears as the

laser beam transitions onto the wires and off of the pad. The increasing substrate intensity at

~520 cm-1 results from the laser beam passing between the wires. Spectra 22-27 correspond to

signal from the Si nanowires. Starting with spectrum #28, the strained Si signal intensity

increases and the substrate intensity decreases as the laser beam begins transitioning from the

wires back onto the second pad. Spectra #30 and #31 are representative of the pad alone. At

spectrum #32 and #33 the laser beam is beginning to move from the pad back onto the substrate,

and thus the overall signal is a convolution of both strained Si and substrate frequencies. Finally,

spectra #34 and #35 represent a signal collected solely from the substrate. All strain calculations

are based on a manual software fit to the spectral data using one or two Lorentzian functions

depending on the overall signal line shape and position of the laser beam, after canceling the

linear background signal (examples are given in Appendix B). Stress errors were calculated

based on various sources such as unstrained Si reference frequency, SSOI frequency, phonon

deformation potentials, and elastic constants. These measurements were performed at the limit of

both the spatial and spectral resolution of convention UV micro-Raman and the data and analysis

should be viewed within that context. Additionally, micro-Raman configurations are not

conducive to observing the TO phonon band and thus a planar stress model with biaxial strain is

generally assumed. Therefore, to calculate stress in nanowire and pad regions from the observed

peak shifts, isotropic biaxial relaxation was assumed.

Micro-Raman measurements are not able to resolve the individual in-plane stress

components. Typically for large features or blanket films which are strained due to lattice

mismatched epitaxial growth, the planar stress model is used. However, for small patterned

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features with relatively high aspect ratios, uniaxial relaxation can occur [113, 135]. It is believed

that the biaxial to highly asymmetric strain (close to uniaxial) transition occurred upon patterning

the SSDOI films. After suspension, since the wires are free standing, elastic in-plane relaxation

in the direction perpendicular to the nanowires is highly likely, and we can assume that the strain

is mainly uniaxial with only a longitudinal component remaining.

Figure 3.8: Total in-plane stress (circles, left axis) and corresponding signal-to-noise ratio (squares, right axis) for spectra collected from the 2 μm long nanowires midway between the two pads.

The total in-plane stress, σxx + σyy, at the center of the nanowire region as a function of

nanowire width is plotted in Figure 3.8 (left axis). As can be seen from this plot, the nanowires

are strained to a total in-plane stress of ~2.1 GPa with minimal width dependence. The right-

hand axis corresponds to the associated Raman signal to noise ratio (SNR). Note that the signal

to noise ratio falls significantly as the nanowire width is decreased. This is mainly due to fact

that the nanowire fill factor is decreased below widths of 40 nm. Nanowires with widths of less

than 40 nm were fabricated at a constant pitch size of 100 nm. As the gap size is increased by

reducing the nanowire width, the signal obtained from the substrate increases. Therefore, it is

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more difficult to deconvolve the signals from the substrate and wires and SNR is reduced. The

results for 18 nm wide, ultra dense nanowire (shown in Appendix B) indicate better signal to

noise ratio with total in-plane stress of ~1.7 GPa at the center of these nanowires.

3.3.3 Vertically-Stacked Strained-Si Nanowires

Si nanowires usually have lower integration density compared to planar devices, due to the

physical space requirement for the surround-gate architecture. As a result, nanowires usually

offer less current density for a given chip area. One practical approach to overcome this problem

is to increase the current density by vertically stacking the Si nanowires. Although this method is

capable of increasing the current drive of a device, since the capacitance is also scaled, is doesn’t

improve the circuit gate delay. Combining the uniaxial strain engineering technique with vertical

stacking is beneficial for both current drive enhancement and circuit delay improvement,

simultaneously. Figure 3.9 (a)-(c) shows a schematic process flow to fabricate suspended

vertically stacked Si nanowires. Starting wafers can either be relaxed Si1-xGex on bulk Si, relaxed

Si1-xGex on insulator, or strained-Si directly on insulator (SSDOI) with biaxial tension in the

strained Si. As shown in Figure 3.9 (a), a super-lattice consisting of strained-Si / relaxed Si1-xGex

is then epitaxially grown on the substrates. After a nanolithography step, the material is patterned

and vertically etched to create strained-Si/Si1-xGex pillars (Figure 3.9 (b)). The strained-Si

nanowires are then suspended by selective removal of the relaxed Si1-xGex sacrificial layers

sandwiched between the strained-Si nanowires, as schematically shown in Figure 3.9 (c). The

detailed process flow is provided in Appendix C. The proposed method is in principle

compatible with a CMOS structure where with the same stack, Si can be selectively removed so

that SiGe nanowires can be used as the channel for p-MOSFETs. Figure 3.9 (d) shows the top-

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view schematic of the Raman laser analysis areas used to characterize stress in the nanowires.

Test structures with N = 1 to 5 levels of vertical stack were fabricated on bulk relaxed Si0.7Ge0.3

substrates. Figure 3.9 (e) shows sample tilted SEM images of 1.4 µm long vertically stacked

suspended strained-Si nanowires with N = 1 to 5 stacked levels.

Figure 3.9: (a)-(c) Schematic of the process flow utilized to realize vertically stacked strained-Si nanowires; (d) top view of the stacked-Si nanowires highlighting the region where Raman signal was collected; (e) SEM images of N = 1 to 5 level vertically-stacked strained-Si nanowires.

Micro–Raman spectroscopy was used to measure the amount of strain in the as-grown

substrates as well as the nanowires. The micro-Raman measurements were performed at 458 nm

laser line and average power of 1 mW, in a backscatter configuration (no sample tilt) with an

Olympus™ 0.8 NA objective, allowing for sub-micron spatial resolution [136]. The stress

measurememts on starting substrates (shown in Appendix C) indicate that the Si is fully strained

even after 5 periods, with an average biaxial tensile strain 1.17% (2.1 GPa) [137].

Figure 3.10 (a) shows Raman spectra of the Si-Si LO phonon mode at the center of an array

of suspended strained-Si nanowires with WNW = 30 and 35 nm and N = 1 and 5 vertical stacked

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layers. WNW is defined as the plan-view SEM width of Si nanowires. The inset shows a top-view

schematic of nanowires where the approximate position of the laser beam is highlighted. As the

laser spot size is much larger than the nanowire diameter, each scan averages the signal taken

from many parallel wires. Again, two peaks are noticeable in the Raman spectra. The left peak

corresponds to the signal penetrated through the spacing between nanowires to the bulk Si0.7Ge0.3

region. The right peak corresponds to strained-Si nanowires. Compared to experiments

performed on SSDOI substrates (section 3.2), the use of a thick, relaxed SiGe substrate in the

present structures blocks the signal from the bulk Si substrate, reducing interference between the

bulk and strained-Si peaks. As a result, enhanced signal-to-noise ratio is expected when scanning

the strained-Si nanowires.

Figure 3.10: (a) Raman spectra (courtesy of C. D. Poweleit, ASU) of at the center of array of suspended strained-Si nanowires with (WNW = 30 and 35 nm, and N = 1 and 5 number of stacked layers); (b) Biaxial strain relaxation (with starting substrates as reference) vs. number of nanowires as a function of nanowire width, indicating stress preservation after 5 layer stacking of nanowires.

Isotropic biaxial relaxation was assumed to quantify stress with a biaxial average defined as

(εxx + εyy) / 2, where εxx and εyy are the longitudinal and transverse components of the stress,

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respectively. To investigate how much relaxation results from the stacking process, biaxial strain

relaxation in nanowires as a function of stack number for WNW = 30 nm and 35 nm is plotted in

Figure 3.10 (b). Here the biaxial relaxation is defined as the difference in average biaxial strain

in the starting substrate and the center of the nanowires. No significant change in nanowire

strain, within the error bar of Raman spectroscopy, was observed due to the stacking process.

3.4 Chapter Summary

In summary, this chapter introduces two novel channel systems with asymmetric strain

configurations suitable for future CMOS generations. Compressively strained-Ge channels with

virtually uniaxial strain were demonstrated by elastic lateral relaxation of Ge HOI substrates

using a nano-patterning technique. UV-micro-Raman measurements indicate that approximately

45% of initial biaxial compression is relaxed for 30 nm wide Ge HOI nanowires, with a Ge

thickness up to 7 nm. In addition, a novel uniaxial suspended strained-Si nanowire technology

was successfully developed by lateral relaxation and release of SSDOI substrate, forming

suspended strained-Si nanowires with pitch sizes as small as 40 nm. The UV-micro-Raman

metrology on arrays of dense nanowires indicate that suspended nanowires were strained to total

in-plane stress (mainly uniaxial) of ~2 GPa with a minimal width dependency. Moreover, a

process was developed to realize vertical stacking of these suspended strained channels in the

third dimension. Stress measurements confirm that the strain is maintained even after five levels

of vertical stacking. Combined with the benefits of uniaxial strain technology, this technique has

potential to increase the current drive of gate-all-around MOSFETs at a given pitch size.

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Chapter 4

Gate-All-Around Uniaxially Strained-Si Nanowire n-MOSFETs 4.1 Introduction

This chapter describes the experimental results on the fabrication and electrical

characterization of Si and strained-Si nanowire n-MOSFETs. Section 4.2 briefly discusses about

fabrication and metrology of gate-all-around nanowire n-MOSFETs. The electrostatics and sub-

threshold characteristics of these devices is investigated in section 4.3. Section 4.4 evaluates the

performance of gate-all-around strained Si nanowires over unstrained Si nanowires in terms of

current drive, extrinsic and intrinsic transconductance. Finally, the electron effective mobility of

these devices is investigated in section 4.5.

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Figure 4.1: (a) Fabrication process flow of gate-all-around uniaxial strained-Si nanowire n-MOSFETs. (b) Top-view and (c) side-view schematic of suspended uniaxially tensile strained-Si channel fabricated by lateral relaxation and undercutting the nanowires. Inset shows the nanowire dimensions and stress direction.

4.2 Device Fabrication and Metrology

The fabrication process flow for gate-all-around strained-Si nanowires is shown in Figure 4.1

(a). 150 mm-diameter Strained-Silicon-Directly-On-Insulator (SSDOI) wafers, strained to

Si0.7Ge0.3 virtual substrates, fabricated using a bond and etch-back method, were used as the

starting substrate. The Si layer was thinned to 21 nm by wet chemical oxidation and oxide

removal. For comparison, unstrained SOI wafers (thinned down to similar thickness by multiple

steps of dry-oxidation and oxide removal) were used as control devices. After defining e-beam

alignment marks by photolithography and reactive ion etching deep into the bulk Si, active layers

were patterned by hybrid lithography, where <110>-oriented multiple NWs (with widths of 20 –

60 nm) were defined by e-beam lithography and the source/drain pads were defined by

photolithography. Figure 4.1 (b) and (c) schematically illustrates the orientation and geometry of

the nanowires and the direction of the engineered stress by lateral relaxation. The <110>

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nanowire orientation was chosen to gain the maximum uniaxial strain-induced performance, as

discussed in section 2.4.2. The active layers were mesa-etched by reactive ion etching and

nanowires were then suspended by time-controlled wet etching of the buried oxide in a

hydrofluoric acid bath. Figure 4.2 (a) shows a sample SEM micrograph of 20 nm-wide

suspended strained-Si nanowires. As shown in chapter 3, the nanowires are uniaxially strained to

a high stress level of ~2 GPa, with little dependence on nanowire width. After RCA cleaning, the

nanowires were wrapped with Low-Temperature-Oxide (LTO) and in-situ n+-doped poly-Si. The

gate was aligned to the nanowires using a non-self aligned process. A misalignment accuracy of

less than 50 nm was achieved using a multiple exposure and correction process by i-line stepper

and SEM, respectively. The gate overlaps the S/D by approximately 100 nm or 400 nm,

depending on the design. Devices with nanowire lengths in the range of 0.4 to 10 μm were

fabricated. Source/drain regions were then implanted with phosphorus at energy of 19 keV to a

dose of 3×1015 cm-2.

During the nanowire release process, the S/D pad edges were also undercut (see Figure 4.2

(a)) and the gap was then filled with gate oxide and poly-Si stringers. The ion-implanted oxide

and poly-Si can provide a leaky oxide which can increase the sub-threshold leakage of the

device. As a result, a photolithography mask was designed to protect the gate and S/D pads

except the S/D edges, where the stringers were formed, as shown in Appendix D. The poly-Si

stringers were then reactive-ion etched using a sequential Si/oxide/Si/oxide/Si etch recipe. After

poly-Si stringer etch and inter-layer-dielectric deposition, S/D regions were activated by rapid

thermal annealing at 625˚C for 2 minutes followed by 800˚C for 10 seconds. Ti/Al metallization

and N2/H2 annealing finalized device fabrication. Control SOI samples with similar body

thickness went through the same process steps to compare the performance of strained-Si

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nanowire (SSOI NW) with the unstrained-Si nanowires (SOI NW). The fabrication yield was

improved for the strained devices relative to the unstrained ones, as the uniform tensile strain

prevents bending during processing. The device dimensions were calibrated by SEM and cross-

sectional TEM. Based on these calibrations, nanowires were laterally thinned to various widths

in the range of 50 to 8 nm, vertically thinned to thicknesses of ~8 nm, and the corners were

rounded during processing. Figure 4.2 (b) shows SEM micrograph of 0.8 µm long nanowire n-

MOSFET with 10 parallel nanowires after complete device fabrication. It can be seen that a

perfect gate to nanowire alignment is achieved. Evidence of the S/D stringer etch on the buried

oxide is also discernible, as the unprotected buried oxide is also exposed to the successive

stringer etch steps.

Figure 4.2: (a) Sample tilted SEM image of suspended strained-Si nanowires. (b) Top-view colored SEM image of gate-all-around strained-Si nanowire n-MOSFET with 10 parallel nanowires. The poly-Si/LTO gate stringers at the edge of ion-implanted source/drain pads were etched using a separate protection mask.

Cross-sectional Transmission-Electron-Microscopy (XTEM) was used to calibrate the

dimension of the nanowires. Figure 4.3 illustrates sample XTEM images of strained-Si nanowire

n-MOSFETs with (a) 24.4×8 nm elliptical and (b) 8 nm diameter circular cross sections. The

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nanowires are fully wrapped with non-uniform LTO and poly-Si. The lattice images in the insets

indicate perfect crystalline structure in the nanowire channel. In addition, the nanowires show

rounded corners.

Figure 4.3: Cross-sectional TEM of gate-all-around n-MOSFETs with (a) elliptical and (b) circular cross-section strained-Si nanowires. The focused-ion-beam cut is perpendicular to the nanowire direction (electron transport direction). Heavily-doped poly-Si gate and low-temperature oxide wraps all around the Si nanowires. TEM performed at Evans Analytical Group.

4.3 Electrostatics and Threshold Voltage

Figure 4.4 shows the transfer (ID - VGS, in both linear and logarithmic scales) and output (ID -

VDS, in linear scale) characteristics of gate-all-around strained-Si nanowires with ~4 nm-radius

circular cross-section as shown in TEM image of Figure 4.3 (b). The device consists of 10

parallel nanowires with a length of ~0.65 µm. Normal MOSFET output and transfer

characteristics are observed for these sub-10 nm nanowires. Excellent cut-off characteristics

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(very low-level off current) with a sub-threshold slope (defined in equation 2.8) of 67 mV/dec

were achieved even with medium quality LTO.

Figure 4.4: Typical (a) transfer (ID - VGS) and (b) output characteristics (ID - VDS) for a circular cross-section gate-all-around strained-Si nanowire n-MOSFET with N = 10 nanowires, average nanowire diameter of ~ 8 nm, and LNW ~ 0.65 μm. For (a), the left axis shows the current in logarithmic scale while the right axis shows it in linear scale.

Figure 4.5(a) shows the plot of sub-threshold slope vs. nanowire width for various nanowire

lengths in the range of ~0.4 to ~1 µm. Sub-threshold slopes were calculated over a range of four

orders of magnitude from the off-state operation tail. The sub-threshold slope varies between 64

to 67 mV/dec, indicating a relatively low interface state density at the nanowire/LTO interface.

For comparison, the sub-threshold slope of devices with thermally grown oxide is also shown in

this figure, exhibiting near ideal swing of 60-63 mV/dec due to the better quality of the thermal

oxide compared to LTO. The small roll-up of the sub-threshold slope at smaller nanowire widths

can be attributed to the increased density of the interface traps at the nanowire sidewalls

compared to (100) horizontal surfaces. Figure 4.5 (b) shows the variation of the threshold voltage

as a function of nanowire width for strained Si nanowires and unstrained Si nanowires. The

threshold voltage was extracted by the linear extrapolation method [126]. Both types of devices

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are “normally on” (except sub-10 nm SOI nanowires) due to the interface and fixed charges of

LTO as well as fully-depleted nature of SOI and SSOI planar and non-planar devices. However,

in practical applications the threshold of these devices can be adjusted by gate workfunction

engineering. SSOI NW devices show a negative threshold voltage shift of 120 ± 30 mV relative

to unstrained devices confirming the presence of uniaxial tension, which lowers the conduction

band edge compared that in to unstrained nanowires. The shift is consistent with the results on

uniaxially-strained Tri-gate n-MOSFETs [80] and as expected is less than the shift for planar

biaxial devices (~340 mV). It can be seen that the threshold voltage increases with decreasing

nanowire width. This is attributed to both the lateral confinement of the electrons which

increases the conduction band (Δ2) energy (as discussed in section 2.3.2.3), as well as the

mobility degradation due to decrease in the nanowire width [63].

Figure 4.5: (a) Plot of subthreshold slope as a function of WNW and LNW for SSOI nanowires with low-temperature oxide (LTO) and thermal oxide gate dielectrics showing near ideal subthreshold swing. (b) Variation of threshold voltage (Vth) vs. WNW for SOI and SSOI nanowires showing Vth shift of -120 ± 30 mV due to uniaxial strain-induced conduction band shift. The Vth roll-up for sub 15 nm nanowires is due to quantum mechanical confinement.

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Figure 4.6: Transfer characteristics of gate-all-around Si and strained-Si nanowire n-MOSFETs (with LTO gate dielectric) showing near ideal subthreshold slope of 65 mV/dec. and ~2X current enhancement and ~ 0.1 V strain-induced Vth shift.

4.4 Performance Evaluation

Figure 4.6 shows the transfer (ID - VGS) characteristics of gate-all-around SSOI and SOI

nanowire MOSFETs (LNW = 1 µm, tNW = 8 nm, WNW = 20 nm and N = 10), plotted on linear and

logarithmic scales. Both devices display excellent near-ideal swing of 65 mV/dec. In addition,

the threshold voltage of SSOI NWs are ~ -0.1 V shifted with respect to SOI NWs due to the

modulation of the conduction band by uniaxial strain. Strained nanowires also show more than

2X enhancement in current drive over unstrained nanowires at VGS = 1 V. In order to evaluate

the performance of these devices, the extrinsic low-field (VDS = 0.05 V) transconductance of

both devices are plotted as a function of the overdrive voltage (VGS-Vth) in Figure 4.7. Such a

plot can reduce the effects of the different turn-on voltage of strained and unstrained nanowires,

leading to a fair comparison of the extrinsic performance. An enhancement of 1.95X is achieved

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for peak transconductance of SSOI NWs over SOI NWs. It can be seen that the enhancement is

degraded at higher over drive voltages due to increased contribution of the external resistance as

a result of the high resistivity of the ultra-thin-body S/D regions.

Figure 4.7: (a) Extrinsic transconductance (gm) of SOI and SSOI Gate-all-around nanowires vs. overdrive

voltage (VGS-Vth) for nanowires with WNW 20 nm, tNW = 8 nm. SSOI NW exhibits a 1.95X enhancement in gm, max relative to SOI nanowire devices. The enhancement at higher overdrives is degraded by increased contribution of the external resistance.

To determine the intrinsic transconductance (gm, int) of these devices, the series resistance

(Rext) was extracted by plotting the linear total resistance (Rtot = VDS/ID) versus 1/(VGS-Vth-

VDS/2), as shown in Figure 4.8 (a) [126, 138]. The extracted total Rext was ~7.3 kΩ for SSOI NW

and ~9.5 kΩ for SOI NW devices. These values are in reasonable agreement with results

obtained by the L array method [139]. Figure 4.8 (b) shows the gm, int of gate-all-around strained

and unstrained Si devices versus over-drive voltage, at VDS = 50 mV after correction for series

resistance using the above values and a method described in Ref. [140]. The strained-Si nanowire

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device shows an enhancement of ~2.1X in peak intrinsic gm and 1.86X at higher over-drive

voltages, compared to the unstrained Si nanowire device.

Figure 4.8: (a) Plot of total channel resistance vs. 1/(VGS-Vth-VDS/2) to extract external series resistance

(Rext) for SOI and SSOI nanowires vs. VGS-Vth (WNW 20 nm, tNW = 8 nm, N = 10). Rext (shown in the figure) is extracted from the intercept of the extrapolated curve with the vertical axis. (b) Intrinsic transconductance of these devices after correction for Rext. Enhancement factors of 2.1X at maximum gm and 1.86X at VGS-Vth = 0.7 V are due to the uniaxial strain.

Fig. 4.9 compares maximum intrinsic transconductance, gm, max (measured at VDS = 50 mV

and after correction for Rext) versus WNW for unstrained and strained GAA devices (LNW = 0.8

µm, N = 10), illustrating enhancement in gm, max over the entire range of nanowire widths

investigated. It should be noted that even a 2 kΩ (~25%) change in Rext impacts gm, max by less

than 5% in these devices. This is because the current is dominated by the intrinsic nanowire

resistance. An average enhancement of ~2X extends to lateral dimensions in the sub-10 nm

regime, indicating the significant effect of uniaxial strain in deeply scaled Si nanowires.

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Figure 4.9: Intrinsic gm, max (VDS = 50 mV) vs. WNW for SOI and SSOI gate-all-around devices with LNW = 0.8 μm, tNW ~ 8 ± 1 nm and N = 10, displaying an average enhancement in gm, max of ~2X down to sub-10 nm nanowire dimensions.

4.5 Mobility Characterization

4.5.1 Split C-V Measurements

As discussed earlier in section 2.5, nanowires possess very small capacitance due to their

smaller area compared to planar devices. As a result, parasitics and background capacitance are

more pronounced. The capacitance of the fabricated devices was measured using an Agilent

4294A precision impedance analyzer which is nominally capable of measuring ~1 fF capacitance

at common frequency range used for split C-V measurements [141]. Capacitance signals

measured at regular frequencies used for planar devices, i.e. around 40 kHz, are very noisy with

approximately ±15-20 fF noise amplitude. The measurement noise is comparable or larger than

the intrinsic capacitance of the long nanowires (~10 µm long). Measuring capacitances at high-

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frequencies, i.e. 1 MHz, can noticeably lower the noise. It is well known from probability and

statistics that the standard variation of a random variable, σ, with N observations (measurements)

is reduced to σN given by:

/√ (4.1)

In other words, N times point averaging of the capacitance can lower the noise by the square

root of N. As a result, averaging of 40 measurements at 40 kHz can lower the noise to ~2.3-3.1

fF which is acceptable for capacitances on the order of 20 fF or more. The drawback of this

technique is the required long measurement time for every device (order of several minutes to an

hour).

Figure 4.10: Split capacitance-voltage characteristics of an SSOI nanowire n-MOSFETs (N = 10, WNW ~ 49 nm, tNW ~ 8 nm, LNW = 10 µm) measured at f = 40 kHz and 40X point averaging to minimize the noise. The gate-channel capacitance (Cgc) was extracted by subtracting the parasitic capacitance, Cpar, (background and overlap capacitance, measured from devices without nanowires but with gate overlap on the S/D regions) was subtracted from the total capacitance (Ctot). (b) Cgc vs. VGS for SSOI nanowire n-MOSFETs (N = 10, WNW ~ 39 nm, tNW ~ 8 nm, LNW = 10 µm) extracted at f = 40 kHz and f = 1 MHz.

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Figure 4.10 (a) shows split C-V measurements of SSOI NW n-MOSFETs (N = 10, WNW ~ 49

nm, tNW ~ 8 nm, LNW = 10 µm) measured at f = 40 kHz with 40X point averaging (Ctot). The split

C-V of devices without Si nanowires but similar design structure, where gate poly-Si overlaps

the S/D pads, is also overlaid (Cpar). As devices are much longer than the gate-to-source/drain

overlap regions, Cpar can represent the background and parasitics capacitances with reasonable

accuracy. Thus, the intrinsic gate to nanowire channel capacitance, Cgc, can be approximated by:

(4.2)

Figure 4.10 (b) shows Cgc vs. VGS for SSOI NW n-MOSFETs (N = 10, WNW ~ 39 nm, tNW ~ 8

nm, LNW = 10 µm) extracted at f = 40 kHz and f = 1 MHz. The measured capacitances are in

good agreement (within less than 8%). The extracted Cgc for SSOI NW n-MOSFETs with WNW

= ~25, 39, and 49 nm are shown in Figure 4.11. These C-V characteristics are used for mobility

estimation in the following section.

Figure 4.11: Intrinsic gate-channel capacitance-voltage of gate-all-around SSOI nanowires with WNW = 25, 39, 49 nm. The background and overlap capacitances were subtracted from the original split-CV. 40 point averaging was used to reduce the noise.

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Figure 4.12: (a) Gate-channel capacitance and (b) total channel resistance of SSOI nanowire n-MOSFETs (N = 10, WNW ~ 49 nm, tNW ~ 8 nm) with LNW = 10 µm (C1 and R1) and LNW = 4 µm (C2 and R2) used to extract the mobility using the 2-FET method. The extracted Rext is also shown in (b).

4.5.2 Electron Mobility

Figure 4.12 shows the capacitance and the low-field channel resistance (equation 2.45) of the

SSOI nanowire n-MOSFETs (N = 10, WNW ~ 49 nm, tNW ~ 8.7 nm) with LNW = 10 µm (C1 and

R1) and LNW = 4 µm (C2 and R2), utilized for mobility extraction using the two FET method as

described in section 2.5. The ratio of maximum capacitances is 0.43 which scales quite well with

the ratio of the nanowire lengths (~6 % error). The error can originate from the variation and

length dependence of non-uniformly deposited LTO dielectric, as well as small differences in the

nanowire diameter of two devices due to lithography issues. The external resistance (Rext),

consists of the contact resistance, sheet resistance of the ion-implanted S/D and the resistance of

the overlap regions, and is calculated using:

(4.3)

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Extracted Rext has an average value of ~7 kΩ and approaches 6.1 kΩ at high gate overdrives.

These results are in very good agreement with the result extracted using the method described in

section 4.4, Figure 4.8 (a). The extracted low-field effective mobility, μeff, of the SSOI NW n-

MOSFETs (N = 10, WNW ~ 49 nm, tNW ~ 8.7 nm) using the split C-V (after correction for the

parasitics) and two FET methods are shown in Figure 4.13, demonstrating excellent agreement

between the two mobility extraction techniques. The average inversion charge density (Ninv) was

calculated by integrating the measured C-V data and normalizing to the surface area of the wires

given by 2L x (WNW + tNW). Universal (100) mobility [73] and the mobility of planar SOI and

SSDOI (tSi = 8.7 nm, close to the average thickness of SSOI NW) [67] and SOI NWs (WNW = 44

nm) are also overlaid for comparison. The SSOI NW device with WNW = 49 nm shows

enhancements of 1.22X, 1.69X, and ~ 2.57X over universal, thin-body planar SOI and SOI NW

devices (with slightly smaller width of ~ 44 nm), at Ninv = 1013 cm-2, respectively.

Figure 4.13: Low-field electron mobility (μeff) vs. charge density (Ninv) of SSOI NW (WNW = 49 nm, tNW

= 8.7 nm) measured by split-CV and 2-FET method. μeff for the widest SOI NW (W = 44nm), planar SOI and SSDOI (tSi = 8.7 nm) (11), and universal are shown for comparison.

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4.5.3 Width Dependence of Electron Mobility

Figure 4.14 shows the effective electron mobility vs. average inversion charge density for

SSOI NWs with WNW in the range of 15-49 nm. For comparison, the electron mobility of an

ultra-thin body fully-depleted SOI MOSFET with body thickness of 8 nm is also shown [67].

SSOI NWs with WNW ≥ 20 show electron mobility enhancement over planar SOI MOSFET at

mid and high inversion charge densities. In addition, the mobility of 15 nm SSOI NW

approaches the planar SOI mobility at high inversion charge density, i.e. 1013 cm-2. It can be seen

that the nanowire mobility is reduced as WNW is decreased.

Figure 4.14: Low-field electron mobility (μeff) vs. charge density (Ninv) with WNW ~ 15, 20, 25, 39, 49 nm. The electron mobility plot of fully-depleted ultra-thin-body (8 nm) SOI is shown for comparison [67]. Mobility is reduced as WNW is decreased, mostly due to an increase in the contribution of the sidewalls.

To further investigate the width dependence of the electron mobility of SSOI nanowires, the

variation of electron mobility as a function of WNW, for Ninv = 1013 cm-2 (filled triangles) is

shown in Figure 4.15 (a). For comparison, the mobilities of unstrained-Si nanowires from the

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literature are also overlaid (empty symbols with solid margin: Ref. [23], empty symbols with

dashed margin: Ref. [121]). A general trend of electron mobility reduction with decreasing

nanowire widths can be seen for all the three reports. It should be noted that the thickness of

nanowires is different in these three cases: 8-8.7 nm for SSOI NWs, 15 nm for SOI NWs of Ref.

[121] and 18 nm for SOI NWs of Ref. [23]. As a result, a better demonstration can be achieved

by plotting the electron mobility vs. the ratio of the low mobility sidewall width to the surface

width (Wsidewall / Wsurface), as shown in Figure 4.15 (b). The arrow in the figure points out that as

WNW is reduced, the ratio Wsidewall / Wsurface increases. Figure 4.15 clearly shows ~2X mobility

enhancement is achieved over the entire range of Wsidewall / Wsurface for SSOI NWs compared to

the highest electron mobility reported for SOI NWs (Ref. [121]). In addition, the mobility of SOI

NWs of Ref. [23] (fabricated using a similar approach to this work) are ~ 2.5 - 3.5X lower than

the mobility of SSOI NWs in this work.

Figure 4.15: (a) Electron mobility for SSOI NWs vs. (a) WNW and (b) the ratio of sidewall to surface (Wsidewall / Wsurarface , as schematically shown in the inset) at Ninv = 1013 cm-2. Overlaid are the mobilities of unstrained-Si nanowires (empty triangles: Ref. [23], empty squares: Ref. [121]).

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To better understand the width dependence of the electron mobility in Si nanowires, a simple

model is introduced in this section. The total conductance of the nanowire channel made on

(100) SOI, GNW, can be written as:

(4.4)

where GS and GSW are the conductance of two regions: the (100) surface and non-(100)

sidewalls, respectively. Equation (4.4) can be expressed in terms of the width (W), mobility (μ)

and charge density (n) associated with a given region by:

(4.5)

The S and SW indices refer to (100) surface and sidewall regions, respectively. The nS and nSW

are related to nNW as follows:

(4.6)

Equations 4.5 and 4.6 can be merged into the following equation:

11 1 1 (4.7)

where kW = WSW/ WS, rn = nSW/ nS, and rμ = μSW/ μS. kW is a geometric constant which is the ratio

of the sidewall width to the horizontal surface width and rn is the ratio of the inversion charge

density near the sidewall to that on the horizontal surface. The kW constant can be directly

extracted by metrology techniques such as TEM, or SEM and elipsometry and can be corrected

for quantum mechanical separation of the inversion charge from the nanowire/dielectric

interface. The rn ratio can be extracted by Schrödinger-Poisson charge simulations and is a

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function of device geometry. The ratio rμ is an empirical fit to the experimental data and includes

both intrinsic orientation effects as well as line-edge roughness scattering. In addition, as the

inversion charge density is different on the sidewalls and (100) surfaces, the rμ is not simply the

ratio of the mobility at given inversion charge density. For example, in an elliptical cross-section

nanowire at an inversion charge density of 1013 cm-2 at the top surface, if the average sidewall

charge density is 1.5X larger than the surface, the sidewalls have a lower mobility (compared to

the mobility at Ninv = 1013) due to the electric field dependence of the mobility. Thus, rμ is less

than what is expected by simply dividing the mobilities at Ninv=1013 cm-2. This adds some

complexity to the model described.

Figure 4.16: Electron mobility for SSOI NWs (solid symbols) and SOI NWs (open symbols, [121]) vs. WNW at Ninv = 1013 cm-2. Lines are the empirical model with rμ = 0.34, 0.2 and 0.15 (with rμ decreasing in the direction of the arrow) for SSOI NWs and rμ = 0.35 and 0.2 for SOI NWs.

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Figure 4.16 shows the mobility of SSOI NWs and SOI NWs (Ref. [121]) as a function of

WNW at Ninv = 1013 cm-2. Symbols and lines represent the results obtained by measurements and

using the simple model, respectively. For SSOI NWs, rn = 1.23 was extracted using Schrödinger-

Poisson charge simulations. For simplicity, the mobility of biaxially strained-Si was assumed for

μs [67]. In addition, the effective width of the device was defined geometrically as the perimeter

taken at the location of the charge centroid peak. As a result, only one fitting parameter, i.e. rµ,

was used for this model. Using data shown in Figure 2.7 from Ref. [73], and considering the

simulated rn = 1.23, rµ = 0.34 is extracted for the worst case. The results of this simple model for

rµ = 0.34, 0.2, and 0.15 are shown in Figure 4.16. The best mobility fits were achieved for rµ =

0.15-0.2, with small sensitivity to rµ. For SOI NWs from Ref. [121], the inversion charge density

was simulated using a Schrödinger-Poisson solver and the published geometry of the device

cross-section, and rn.kw = 0.51, 0.65, 0.74, 0.78 was extracted for WNW = 30, 20, 15 and 10 nm,

respectively (simulations courtesy of J. T. Teherani). Figure 4.16 shows the modeling results for

SOI NWs with rµ = 0.35 and 0.2, corresponding to the nominal ratio and the best fit, respectively.

For both types of nanowires, at least 42%-56% reduction in rµ is observed from its nominal value

(where the nominal value is estimated from the orientation dependence of the mobility, i.e. the

electron mobility ratio for the (110) and (100) surfaces, accounting for the local difference in

inversion charge density). Assuming this simple model is valid, this deviation of the mobility

ratio is attributed to the sidewall roughness scattering.

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4.6 Chapter Summary

In summary, this chapter was focused on the fabrication and electrical characterization of

gate-all-around nanowire n-MOSFETs with novel uniaxial tensile strained-Si channels. Long-

channel nanowire devices with nanowire widths in the range of 49 nm down to 8 nm exhibit

excellent electrostatics with near ideal sub-threshold slope and very high on-to-off ratio. The

threshold voltage of strained-Si nanowire n-MOSFETs was increased compared to unstrained-Si

devices as a result of uniaxial strain in the channel. The performance of these devices was also

investigated in terms of drain current, extrinsic and intrinsic transconductance and low-field

electron mobility, all revealing noticeable enhancement over planar fully depleted SOI n-

MOSFETs and ~2X enhancement over unstrained-Si nanowires fabricated in this work as well as

those reported in the literature. The width dependence of the mobility was also investigated and

it was observed that the mobility decreases as the nanowire width is decreased. This mobility

reduction is attributed to the increased contribution of the sidewalls with lower mobility due to

their naturally larger effective mass as well as sidewall roughness scattering. Finally, a simple

analytical model was developed to investigate the width dependence of electron mobility in

strained-Si and unstrained-Si nanowires. This model uses only a single fitting parameter, i.e. the

sidewall to surface mobility ratio, and verifies that the electron mobility reduction with

decreasing nanowire width can be described by increased contribution of the low-electron-

mobility sidewalls. In addition, the mobility ratio is deviated from the nominal theoretical value

by more than 42%, which is believed to be due to the sidewall roughness scattering, resulting

from the non-ideal lithography and RIE process.

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Chapter 5

Device Design and Process Technology for Gate-All-Around Si Nanowire p-MOSFETs 5.1 Introduction

As discussed earlier in chapter 2, gate-all-around nanowire p-MOSFETs have potential to

offer enhanced hole transport properties compared to planar devices, because of the high-

mobility (110) sidewall planes. Careful design and fabrication process are critical in order to

accurately investigate transport in such structures. Towards this end, this chapter provides key

design and process fundamentals to facilitate the analysis of carrier mobility in Si nanowires.

The new design utilized in this thesis to fabricate gate-all-around nanowire p-MOSFETs is

introduced in section 5.2. The role of maskless high-temperature hydrogen anneal on the shape

of suspended Si nanowires is given in section 5.3. Finally, this chapter ends with the

characterization of the atomic-layer deposited (ALD) high-κ and metal gate process technology

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utilized for fabrication of gate-all-around nanowire transistors, and the effect of various ALD

deposition conditions on the hole mobility of planar SOI MOSFETs is investigated.

5.2 Device Design for Accurate Mobility Extraction

The fabrication flow of gate-all-around Si nanowire p-MOSFETs is shown in Figure 5.1.

Starting wafers were 150 mm, (100)-oriented SOI wafers (100 nm Si / 200 nm buried-oxide).

The Si thickness was thinned to ~20 nm by multiple cleaning, oxidation and oxide removal steps.

After definition of e-beam lithography alignment marks, Si nanowires along <110> direction and

S/D pads were defined by hybrid lithography. The new design features 100 µm-wide S/D pads

which allows accommodation of N = 500 parallel nanowires in a 200 nm pitch and sub-1.2 µm

S/D spacing Keeping the nanowire length, LNW, below 1.2 um helps to avoid stiction problems

between the nanowire and substrate. The increased number of nanowires leads to a significant

enhancement of the capacitance signal. After reactive-ion etching of Si and stripping the resist,

nanowires were locally released using a protective photoresist mask and a buffered-oxide etch

bath. Figure 5.2 shows the schematic of Si nanowires with S/D edges protected by the “local

release mask” (a) before suspension and (b) after local release and resist strip. These process

steps eliminate the formation of gate stringers, minimizing the parasitic capacitance and leakage

current.

The suspended nanowires were then RCA cleaned and subjected to a hydrogen anneal

process in an Applied Materials Epi Centura™ reactor. The process details of the maskless

hydrogen anneal are given in section 5.3. After hydrogen annealing, each wafer was immediately

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transferred to an atomic-layer deposition system were an interfacial SiO2 / Al2O3 dielectric and

tungsten-nitride (WN) metal gate was deposited on top of planar mesas and all around suspended

Si nanowires. ALD high-κ/metal gate was chosen for several reasons. Although thermally grown

oxide benefits from excellent interface with Si nanowires, the facet dependence of the growth

usually results in a non-uniform oxide thickness for various crystallographic planes which

complicates the electrical analysis [141]. In addition, thermally grown oxide can induce a

significant amount of stress in the nanowires which can alter their intrinsic carrier transport

properties [109, 110, 141, 142]. Low-temperature chemically-deposited oxide is also non-

conformal and difficult to scale below thicknesses of about 4 nm due to the high gate-leakage.

However, the ALD dielectric benefits from scalability to thinner effective-oxide-thicknesses

(EOT) and its excellent conformality ensures that the entire perimeter of the Si nanowire is

uniformly gated. The details of the high-κ/ metal-gate process used for this experiment are

provided in section 5.4.

Figure 5.1: Process flow utilized to fabricate gate-all-around nanowire p-MOSFETs with high-K/metal gate and hydrogen annealing process.

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After gate stack deposition, the gate was patterned via a non-self-aligned photolithography

step with less than 100 nm overlap on the source/drain. Any misalignment was diagnosed by

SEM imaging and lithography was repeated until the desired accuracy was achieved. The

overlapped gate structure was designed for two reasons. First, it helps to minimize the S/D

external resistance as the ion-implanted nanowires may exhibit very large series resistance.

Second, it is technologically difficult to remove the metal gate stringers under the nanowires if

the gate is underlapped. Moreover, any gate-first process to be used after vertical etching of the

gate, requires an isotropic etch of the gate metal stringers under the nanowires which also

laterally etches the bottom gate and results in high extension resistance.

Figure 5.2: (a) Schematic of the protection mask to locally release the Si nanowires. (b) Schematic of the suspended Si nanowires after local release in buffered-oxide-etch, demonstrating no space available for gate-stringer at source/drain edges. (c) Schematic of design layout of the Si nanowire MOSFETs, displaying the contact vias, gate-to-pad overlap (< 100 nm), distance between contact via and the gate edge (dvia-gate< 400 nm), and between contact via and metal edge (dvia-metal< 400 nm).

After WN gate etching in an SF6 plasma, source/drain regions were ion-implanted with boron

at a dose of 2×1015 cm-2 and energy of 5 keV. LTO inter-layer-dielectric was then deposited

while exposing the high-κ/metal gate to a temperature of 400°C for a few hours, source/drain

regions were activated at 640°C for 10 minutes, followed by annealing in forming gas at 500°C

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for 30 minutes. Compared to the previous design described in chapter 4, the new design also

features a tighter contact pitch design with the i-line stepper to minimize the series resistance.

Figure 5.2 (c) illustrates the schematic of design layout for the Si nanowire MOSFETs,

displaying the contact vias, gate-to-pad overlap (< 100 nm), distance between contact via and the

gate edge (dvia-gate< 400 nm), and between contact via and metal edge (dvia-metal< 400 nm). After

contact via opening and Ti/Al deposition and patterning, the fabrication was completed by a

forming gas annealing at 450°C for 30 minutes. The process details and recipes are given in

Appendix E.

Figure 5.3: Schematic device structure of the gate-all-around nanowire MOSFETs designed for mobility extraction. A-A’ and B-B’ cut-lines represent the device cross-sections perpendicular and along the nanowire direction, respectively. Device dimensions (WNW, Wtot, tNW, LNW, Lov and N), channel resistance (RNW and Rov), and capacitive (Cpar) and resistive (Rext) parasitics are shown on the B-B’ cross-section.

Figure 5.3 schematically illustrates the device structure of the gate-all-around nanowire

MOSFETs designed for accurate mobility extraction. A-A’ and B-B’ cut-lines represent the

device cross-sections perpendicular and along the nanowire direction, respectively. Device

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physical dimensions such as nanowire width (WNW), nanowire height (tNW), total nanowire

perimeter, (Wtot), nanowire length (LNW), number of parallel nanowires (N), and gate-to-pad

overlap length (Lov) are indicated. The total source to drain resistance includes external

resistance, Rext, and channel resistance, Rch. The former consists of the contact resistance (Rc)

and resistance of the ion-implanted source/drain (Rs). The latter mainly consists of the nanowire

intrinsic resistance as well as gate-to-pad overlap resistance, which has a minor contribution for

long-channel devices. In addition, Figure 5.3 illustrates some major components of the parasitic

capacitances (Cpar, other than gate-to-nanowire capacitance) such as gate-to-S/D pad, gate-to-S/D

metal, and gate-to-S/D capacitances.

Figure 5.4: (a) Tilted and (b) cross-sectional SEM images of the final gate-all-around nanowire p-MOSFETs with high-κ/metal-gate, with a FIB cut along the suspended nanowire direction.

Figure 5.4 (a) shows a tilted SEM image of the gate-all-around nanowire (N = 500 nanowires

and LNW = 1 µm) p-MOSFET with high-κ/metal gate process after complete device fabrication.

In order to prepare the sample for cross-sectional SEM analysis, the devices were cut using an

FEI Helios Nanolab™ 600 Dual-Beam™ Focused-Ion-Beam (FIB) milling system. Figure 5.4

(b) shows a cross-sectional SEM micrograph of a gate-all-around nanowire p-MOSFET cutting

along the direction of the Si nanowires. The Si nanowires and the S/D pads under the gate are

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clearly discernible in this picture due to excellent contrast between the gate-stack and Si, as

opposed to the poor contrast between SiO2 and Si. The area under the end of the Si nanowire

shows a quarter-circle like profile, due to the isotropic nature of the oxide wet etching, which is

fully covered with the WN gate.

5.3 Hydrogen Anneal Process

The effects of hydrogen thermal annealing on the morphology of Si trenches, corners, and

fins have been investigated by various groups, over the past decade [144-151]. Hydrogen thermal

annealing at very high temperatures (800-1100°C) was initially found to transform the shape of

rectangular Si trenches, etched on bulk Si substrates, to circular cross-sections [144]. Using

molecular dynamic simulations, Sato et al. suggested that Si migration around the corners to

minimize the number of dangling bonds and the surface potential energy is the dominant

mechanism. Kuribayashi et al. showed that increasing the hydrogen pressure can reduce the

reshaping of Si trenches [145]. At higher pressure, the increased density of H2 molecules

adsorbed on the Si surface enhances the energy barrier for diffusion of Si atoms which can

reduce the chance of surface migration and reshaping of the trench corners. Lee et al. showed

that hydrogen annealing of Si fins at 900°C with a thick nitride hard mask results in an increased

saturation current with a lowered threshold voltage and a decreased low-frequency noise level

[146]. On the similar structures, Xiong et al. showed that hydrogen anneal improves gate leakage

and reduces the width of the fins resulting in a lower threshold voltage and improved DIBL

characteristics [147]. Zaman et al. demonstrated that maskless hydrogen annealing of the Si fins

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suffers from reduction of the fin size and therefore reduction of the effective width of Si in Tri-

gate MOSFETs [148]. Recently, Tezuka et al. showed that annealing of the Si fins (~67 nm

wide) with oxide hard mask at temperatures above 925°C results in the etching of Si fins and

formation of narrower fins (~34 nm wide) with smooth (110) sidewall [149]. The etching

reaction was attributed to the formation of volatile Si-hydride in reactions such as Si+H2→SiH2

or Si+2H2→SiH4 [150]. In a recent report, Dornel et al. revealed that three-dimensional arrays of

top-down fabricated Si nanowires with 45×20 nm rectangular cross-section were reshaped to

circular cross-section with 35 nm diameter, after hydrogen annealing at 850°C and 20 torr [151].

They also showed that annealing at temperatures higher than 850°C leads to nanowire pinch-off

at the pad/nanowire ends and can result in nanowire breakage due to surface diffusion of Si

atoms. In this section, the effects of maskless hydrogen anneal at various temperatures are

investigated.

Figure 5.5: (a) Schematic and (b) top-view SEM of suspended Si nanowires before and after high-temperature hydrogen annealing. The right SEM images were enhanced for brightness, contrast and shadows to magnify the line edge roughness of the Si nanowires. Reduced sidewall roughness is observed after hydrogen annealing.

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Suspended Si nanowire test structures were fabricated using a top-down approach, as

discussed in section 5.2. After a modified RCA clean with an HF last step and rinsing in DI

water, hydrogen annealing was performed at a temperature of 850°C and a pressure of 100 torr

for 2 minutes, in an Applied Materials Epi Centura™ reactor. Figure 5.5 shows the schematic

and top-view SEM images of 20 nm-wide suspended Si nanowires before and after high-

temperature hydrogen annealing. The right SEM images were enhanced for brightness, contrast

and shadows to magnify the line edge roughness of the Si nanowires. Reduced sidewall

roughness after hydrogen annealing is apparent from these images.

Figure 5.6: (a) Plan-view SEM images of suspended Si nanowires subjected to hydrogen anneal at 850°C, with WNW = 14-73 nm; (b) XTEM of on-wafer nanowire test structure (as-patterned WNW = 20 to 60 nm; step 4 nm) subjected to hydrogen anneal at 850°C, after device completion. Nanowires are surrounded by conformal ~1 nm ALD O3-SiO2 / 5.5 nm Al2O3 / 30 nm WN gate stack (stack κ = 7.4). For wide nanowires, tNW = 16 nm; dropping to 13 nm for the circular nanowire. (110), (111) and (311) sidewall facets are discernible from the XTEM images.

Figure 5.6 (a) illustrates plan-view SEM images of suspended Si nanowires subjected to

hydrogen annealing at 850°C, with WNW =14-73 nm, demonstrating extremely smooth sidewalls

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with roughness below the detection limit of SEM. In order to investigate the cross-sectional

shape of the Si nanowires after hydrogen annealing, suspended nanowire test structures were

fabricated with as-patterned WNW = 20 to 60 nm with an incremental step size of 4 nm, in

vicinity of the devices on the die. This test structure allows on-wafer calibration of the nanowire

dimensions, without need for costly TEM imaging of every single device. Figure 5.6 (b) shows

XTEM images of such a test structure subjected to hydrogen anneal at 850°C, after device

completion. The nanowires are labeled #1 to #11. High-magnification XTEM images of

nanowire #1 to #8 are shown at the bottom row. Nanowires are surrounded by conformal 1 nm

ALD O3-SiO2/ 5.5 nm Al2O3/30 nm WN gate stack (stack κ = 7.4 as determined from planar

capacitors). For wide nanowires, tNW = 16 nm, dropping to 13 nm for the smallest nanowire,

which is has a circular cross-section. It can be seen that the sidewalls are faceted to

crystallographic planes after hydrogen annealing. The angles between the (001) plane and the

facets are ~25°, 54°, and 90° which correspond to 311, 111 and 110 crystallographic

planes, respectively. The results are very close to the facets reported by Vescan et al. for the

selective epitaxy of Si on (001) Si surface [152]. In addition, unlike the results of Ref. [151], no

nanowire pinch-off or breakage at the S/D anchors was observed.

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Figure 5.7: SEM image of array of nanowire test structure (a) as-patterned, (b) after hydrogen annealing at 875°C and (c) after hydrogen annealing at 900°C. Anisotropic hydrogen etching and nanowire pinch-off at the pad/nanowire boundaries are observed for annealing at temperatures higher than 875°C.

For hydrogen annealing above 850°C, significant reduction of the nanowire dimensions was

observed. This is attributed to either migration of the Si atoms to the S/D anchors or thermal

etching of the Si nanowires. Figure 5.7 shows SEM micrographs of a test structure with an array

of nanowires (a) as-patterned and before hydrogen annealing, (b) after hydrogen annealing at

875°C and (c) after hydrogen annealing at 900°C. Again, very smooth sidewalls are achieved.

Moreover, rough Si nano-beams at the boundary of Si nanowires and S/D pads (formed as a

consequence of hybrid-lithography) are completely flattened. In addition, Si nanowires

dimensions are significantly reduced at these elevated temperatures and nanowire pinch-off and

breakage at the pad/nanowire boundaries are observed for narrower nanowires annealed at

temperatures higher than 875°C.

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Figure 5.8: High-resolution Focused-Ion-Beam (FIB) cross-sectional SEM image of a nanowire test structure (with as patterned WNW = 20 to 60 nm; step 4 nm) subjected to hydrogen anneal at 850°C followed by 875°C, after device completion. Nanowire diameters (dNW, as defined in the SEM image) are scaled from 22 nm down to sub-10 nm, mostly with circular cross sections.

Figure 5.8 shows a high-resolution (HR) Focused-Ion-Beam (FIB) cross-sectional SEM

image of a nanowire test structure (with as patterned WNW = 20 to 60 nm; step 4 nm) subjected to

hydrogen annealing at 850°C followed by 875°C, after device completion. The nanowires are

labeled #1 to #11. The bottom row shows higher magnification HR-SEM images of nanowires

with #1, #6 and #11 index numbers. It can be seen that nanowire diameters (dNW, as defined in

the bottom-right SEM image) are scaled from 22 nm down to sub-10 nm, mostly with circular

cross sections. The electrical characteristics of the nanowires subjected to hydrogen anneals with

conditions similar to that shown in Figure 5.6 and 5.8, where the nanowires are mildly smoothed

or reshaped by hydrogen annealing, are investigated in chapter 6.

5.4 High-κ/Metal Gate Process

In order to develop a high-κ/metal gate process it is necessary to perform experiments on

planar SOI wafers for basic material and electrical characterization, which is the subject of this

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section. As discussed in section 5.2, thermally grown oxide or low-temperature oxide suffer from

various issues such as scalability, conformality, undesired stress induction or bending the Si

nanowires. On the other hand, ALD dielectrics benefit from scalability to thinner effective-

oxide-thicknesses (EOT) and their excellent conformality ensures that the entire perimeter of the

Si nanowire is uniformly gated. High-κ/metal gate deposition used for this thesis was performed

in a Cambridge Nanotech™ ALD system. Between two possible dielectric options, HfO2 and

Al2O3, Al2O3 was chosen due to its lower interface trap density and hysteresis behavior

compared to HfO2. HfO2 benefits from better scalability and less gate leakage at sub-1 nm

effective oxide thickness (EOT). However, the EOT achieved using Al2O3 is low enough for

long channel devices fabricated in thesis to accurately extract mobility in gate-all-around

nanowire MOSFETs. In addition, Al2O3 benefits from better thermal stability at high-

temperatures required to activate the S/D, i.e. 640°C, in a gate-first process approach.

Furthermore, processing Al2O3 is much easier to etch than HfO2, particularly for contact via

opening as HfO2 crystallizes after S/D activation anneal, turning into an extremely difficult

material to etch [153]. The electrical characterization of Al2O3 and WN, as well as hole mobility

of planar SOI devices with Al2O3 and WN are investigated in this section.

5.4.1 ALD Al2O3/WN Stack with O3 Surface Passivation

Prior to Al2O3 deposition, planar thin-body SOI wafers were subjected to 7 cycles of in-situ

ALD O3 treatment. The ALD systems was fed through an O3 generator operated at 80% cell

power with 560 sccm O2 flow and ~0.04-0.05 sccm N2 flow. Al2O3 was deposited using a Tri-

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Methyl-Aluminum (TMA) source at temperatures of 200°C and 250°C. Figure 5.9 (a) shows the

split capacitance-voltage (C-V) characteristics of SOI p-MOSFETs with 7 cycles of ALD O3, 60

cycles of Al2O3 and 1200 cycles of WN metal gate, measured at f = 1, 10 and 100 kHz. The

Al2O3 was deposited using a TMA source at 200°C, with a deposition rate of 1.0 Å per cycle.

The WN was deposited at 340°C with a deposition rate of ~0.3-0.4 Å per cycle. Figure 5.9 (b)

shows the corresponding forward and reverse sweeps at f = 100 kHz. Figure 5.10 shows the same

set of split C-V curves for 7 cycles of ALD O3, 55 cycles of Al2O3 and 1200 cycles of WN metal

gate, where the Al2O3 was deposited using a TMA source at 250°C. While the former deposition

condition (at 200°C) shows ~80 mV hysteresis and some frequency dependence, the frequency

dependence is significantly reduced in the latter condition (at 250°C) and hysteresis is

completely eliminated. These results indicate excellent interface properties for SiO2/Al2O3/WN

stack with Al2O3 deposited at 250°C and similar process conditions are used to fabricate gate-all-

around nanowire p-MOSFETs.

Figure 5.9: (a) Split capacitance-voltage characteristics of SOI p-MOSFETs with 7 cycles of ALD O3, 60 cycles of Al2O3 and WN metal gate, measured at f = 1, 10 and 100 kHz ; The Al2O3 dielectric was

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deposited using Tri-Methyl-Aluminum (TMA) source at 200°C. (b) Corresponding forward and backward sweeps at f = 100 kHz, showing 80 mV hysteresis.

Figure 5.10: (a) Split capacitance-voltage characteristics of SOI p-MOSFETs with 7 cycles of ALD O3, 55 cycles of Al2O3 and WN metal gate, showing negligible frequency dependence at f = 1, 10 and 100 kHz; The Al2O3 dielectric was deposited using Tri-Methyl-Aluminum (TMA) source at 250°C. (b) Corresponding forward and backward sweeps at f = 100 kHz, showing no hysteresis.

5.4.2 Planar SOI Mobility

The mobility characteristics of planar SOI p-MOSFETs with SiO2/Al2O3/WN stack, where

Al2O3 was deposited at 200°C and 250°C, are shown in Figure 5.11. Effective hole mobility of

similar stack with Al2O3 deposited using a Tris-Di-Methyl-Amido-Aluminum (TDMAA) source

at 200°C is also shown for comparison. Similar mobility behavior is observed by deposition of

Al2O3 at 200°C using TMA and TDMAA sources. It can be seen that the hole mobility is about

30% degraded compared to universal at high inversion charge densities. However, the hole

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mobility of SOI p-MOSFET with Al2O3 deposited using a TMA source at 250°C tracks the

universal curve, consistent with the excellent C-V characteristics shown in section 5.4.1.

Figure 5.11: Effective hole mobility vs. inversion charge density (Ninv) for planar SOI devices with ALD O3-SiO2 / Al2O3 / WN process. Al2O3 was deposited using Tri-Methyl-Aluminum (TMA) at 200°C and 250°C and Tris-Di-Methyl-Amido-Aluminum (TDMAA) at 200°C.

5.4.3 Tungsten Nitride (WN) Workfunction

Tungsten-nitride deposited by sputtering has recently been shown to have a work function

near the valence band of Si [154]. In order to extract the work function of ALD WN, p-Si wafers

with a doping density of ~1.3×1015 cm-3 were thermally oxidized to an oxide thickness of 40 nm.

Using multiple photolithography steps to protect some quarters of the wafer, the SiO2 layer was

partially etched by a time controlled wet etch. After cleaning the wafer in Piranha solution, the

wafer was exposed to 7 cycles of O3, 55 cycles of the optimized Al2O3 and 1000 cycles of WN in

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the ALD system. Using this approach, capacitors with four oxide thicknesses were fabricated

using a single ALD run. Figure 5.12 (a) shows the schematic of the structure used to extract the

WN workfunction. The flat band voltage of the capacitors was extracted by plotting 1/(C/Cox)2

vs. VGS and extracting the knee point, as described in Ref. [126]. The variation of VFB as a

function of Capacitance-Equivalent-Thickness (CET) is shown in Figure 5.12 (b). Considering

the doping of the p-Si wafer, a work function of 5.3 eV was extracted for ALD WN. This

indicates that the Fermi level of WN is ~0.25 eV deep into the valence band of the Si. This result

is consistent with the threshold voltage of fully-depleted undoped SOI p-MOSFETs described in

section 6.2.1.

Figure 5.12: (a) Schematic of the test structure used to extract the WN workfunction; (b) Plot of flatband voltage (VFB) vs. capacitance effective thickness (CET) for WN/Al2O3/SiO2/Si stack as the thickness of the SiO2 is varied. The value of the metal/semiconductor work function difference extracted from the plot is 0.51 eV.

5.5 Chapter Summary

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This chapter presented the new design and process steps to fabricate and accurately

investigate the hole mobility of gate-all-around nanowire p-MOSFETs, with potentially-

enhanced electrical characteristics. The process combines a large number of sub-micron long

parallel nanowires at various dimensions with a conformal high-κ / metal gate and high-

temperature hydrogen anneal technology, to acquire measurable capacitance signal and

uniformly gate the nanowires that were smoothed by the hydrogen anneal process. Tighter

contact pitch and reduced gate-to-S/D pad overlap were also implemented to reduce the external

resistance and capacitive parasitics, respectively. The hydrogen anneal process was observed to

smooth the sidewalls at 850°C and reshape or anisotropically thin the nanowires at temperatures

above 875°C, as confirmed by plan-view and cross-sectional SEM and TEM analyzes. A high-κ /

metal gate technology using O3 surface passivation, TMA Al2O3, and WN was optimized to

achieve hole universal mobility on planar FD-SOI p-MOSFETs, with moderately-low activation

temperatures, i.e. 640°C. The electrical characteristics of these devices are extensively

investigated in chapter 6.

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Chapter 6

Hole Transport in Gate-All-Around Si Nanowire p-MOSFETs 6.1 Introduction and Process Splits

The electrical characteristics and the hole mobility of gate-all-around Si nanowire p-

MOSFETs with a conformal ALD high-κ/metal gate stack and hydrogen anneal process are

investigated in this chapter. Table 6.1 summarizes the process splits utilized after suspension of

the Si nanowires, representing the pre-dielectric cleaning steps and hydrogen annealing

conditions.

Condition Suspended Nanowire Process

A No hydrogen annealing, RCA clean, HF last, ALD

B RCA clean, hydrogen anneal at 850°C, 100 torr for 2 min, ALD

C Condition B + RCA, hydrogen anneal at 875°C, 100 torr for 2 min, HF dip, ALD

Table 6.1: Process splits for post-suspension nanowire treatment, indicating pre-dielectric cleaning and

hydrogen annealing conditions.

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Typical cross-sectional transmission-electron-microscopy (XTEM) and high-resolution

cross-sectional scanning-electron-microscopy (HR-XSEM) images of devices after complete

fabrication are shown in Figures 5.6 and 5.8. For all three cases, the gate dielectric consists of an

optimized ~1.0 nm in-situ O3-SiO2 and 55 Å of Al2O3, deposited by ALD, with an effective

oxide thickness, EOT, of 3.4 nm. The nanowires were also conformally wrapped with ~27-30 nm

ALD WN. Each device consists of 500 parallel nanowires, and no nanowire breakage was

observed by SEM during processing. The design tips and process details are discussed in section

5.2 and Appendix E, respectively.

6.2 Device Characteristics

6.2.1 Drain Current and Electrostatics

Transfer and output characteristics of gate-all-around nanowire p-MOSFETs (LNW = 0.6 µm,

N = 500, EOT = 3.4 nm) with the optimized hydrogen anneal condition (B) are shown in Figure

6.1 (a) and (b), respectively. The nanowire has as circular cross-section with a radius of ~7.5 nm.

Normal characteristics with no hysteresis or high-κ instability were observed. The device shows

approximately 10 order of magnitude cut-off behavior. The ideal swing of 61 mV/dec. indicates

excellent interface properties. Using equation 2.8 and assuming negligible CS/D compared to Cox,

Dit ~ 2×1011 cm-2 was extracted for the dielectric stack, comparable to thermal SiO2 grown by

high-temperature dry oxidation.

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Figure 6.1: (a) Transfer and output characteristics of gate-all-around ~15 nm-diameter nanowire (LNW = 0.6 µm, N = 500) p-MOSFETs with high-K/metal gate and hydrogen anneal process, showing ideal sub-threshold slope of 61 mV/dec and very high on-to-off ratio. The EOT was extracted from C-V measurements on planar transistors.

The variation of sub-threshold slope (SS) and threshold voltage (Vth) as a function of WNW

for gate-all-around nanowire p-MOSFET with WNW = 15-72 nm and LNW = 0.6-1.2 µm are

shown in Figure 6.2. Slopes were average over 4 to 5 orders of magnitude change in the sub-

threshold drain current. The threshold voltages were extracted using the “linear extrapolation”

method at VDS = -0.05 V, which have similar values at higher drain voltages due to lack of drain-

induced-barrier-lowering (DIBL) for these long-channel devices [126]. The SS and Vth of planar

fully-depleted SOI p-MOSFETs (on the same chip) are also shown for comparison. Sub-

threshold slopes have very small variation between 60.5 and 61.7 mV/dec., with very slight

nanowire width dependence indicating excellent density of interface traps. The higher sub-

threshold slope of the planar devices (~63 mV/dec.) may be attributed to the higher density of

interface traps at the bottom interface between Si and SiO2.

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Figure 6.2: (a) Subthreshold slope (SS) and (b) threshold voltage (Vth) as a function of WNW for gate-all-around p-MOSFETs with Al2O3/WN gate stack. All devices show ideal swing (with a minimum of 60.5 mV/dec for 15 nm circular NW), indicating very low Dit.

A large Vth roll-off with decreasing WNW is observed in Figure 6.2 (b). The flatband voltage

based upon the workfunction of WN, extracted in section 5.4.3, is also shown as a reference.

Quantum mechanical simulations did not show considerable change in the threshold behavior of

these nanowires for various nanowire widths in the range of study. Such strong Vth roll-off

behavior may be due to the sidewall facet-dependent fixed charge, which is more pronounced at

narrower nanowires due to the increased contribution of the sidewalls.

6.2.2 Performance Enhancement by Hydrogen Anneal

Figure 6.3 compares the transfer characteristics of gate-all-around nanowire p-MOSFETs

(LNW = 0.8 µm, N = 500 and 22×15.6 nm elliptical nanowire) treated with optimized hydrogen

anneal at 850°C (condition B) and without hydrogen anneal (condition A). Both devices exhibit

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excellent cut-off characteristics with SS = 61 mV/dec. A threshold voltage shift can be observed

for these nanowires, where hydrogen annealed nanowires turn on at lower gate voltages (in

absolute value). There are few reports on the earlier turn-on behavior of hydrogen annealed

FinFETs or Tri-gate MOSFETs due to reshaping induced by annealing [146-148]. However,

similar threshold shift was observed for the on-chip planar SOI p-MOSFETs investigated in this

study, and the threshold shift it believed to be due to a variation of the flatband voltage or

random variation of the metal gate workfunction.

Figure 6.3: Transfer characteristics of 22×15.6 nm gate-all-around nanowire p-MOSFETs (with N = 500 nanowires) treated with hydrogen anneal at 850°C (condition B) and without hydrogen anneal (condition A), indicating ideal SS = 61 mV/dec and very high on-to-off ratio (~1010). No hysteresis was observed in the transfer characteristics.

In order to directly compare the performance enhancement by hydrogen annealing, the

transfer characteristics of these nanowires (WNW = 22 nm) were plotted vs. overdrive voltage

(VGS - Vth), as shown in Figure 6.4 (a). Moreover, the output characteristics of these devices were

plotted at VGS - Vth = 0 to -2 V, with a step size of -0.25 V. An enhancement of ~1.6X is

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observed for both linear and saturation current due to the optimized hydrogen anneal process at

850°C. This relatively high performance enhancement can not be due to the possible small size

difference of nanowires. For example, a possible 2 nm difference in the width or height of

nanowires can only contribute to 5 % change in the effective width and total current of the

device. The intrinsic performance enhancement by hydrogen annealing, in terms of hole

mobility, is discussed in the following section.

Figure 6.4: Plots of (a) ID vs. gate over-drive voltage (VGS-Vth) and (b) ID vs. VDS for VGS-Vth = -2 V to 0 V step -0.25 V, for 22×15.6 nm gate-all-around nanowire p-MOSFETs with hydrogen anneal at 850°C (condition B) and without hydrogen anneal (condition A), indicating ~1.6X enhancement for linear and saturation current due to the hydrogen anneal process (condition B).

6.3 Hole Mobility Characterization

6.3.1 Capacitance Measurements and Mobility Extraction

Low-field effective hole mobility of these devices was extracted using a double Lm or two-

FET method, as extensively described in section 2.5. MOSFETs with LNW = 0.6 and 1.2 µm and

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N = 500 nanowires were used for this purpose. Drain current was measured at VDS = -50 mV.

Figure 6.5 shows typical split C-V and ID-VGS measurements of 15 nm-diameter circular

nanowire p-MOSFETs (with LNW = 0.6 and 1.2 µm). The currents and capacitances are

normalized by the number of nanowires. The differential capacitance, ΔCinv, is indeed the

intrinsic capacitance of a nanowire with a differential length 0.6 µm (the difference between 1.2

and 0.6 µm nanowire lengths), where all the overlap and other capacitive parasitics are excluded.

Figure 6.5: Typical split-CV and ID-VGS measurements of 15 nm-diameter circular nanowire (with LNW= 0.6 and 1.2 µm) for mobility extraction using the 2-FET method. Drain current was measured at VDS = -50 mV. Current and capacitances are normalized by the number of nanowires (N = 500).

6.3.2 Charge Distribution and Capacitance Simulations

Two-dimensional quantum mechanical simulations were conducted by James T. Teherani

using the nextnano3 ™ Schrödinger-Poisson solver to simulate the charge and potential

distribution and extract the capacitance of the nanowires. To compensate for the lack of S/D

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terminals in the two-dimensional simulation approach, the flat band voltage was changed to

sweep the gate voltage. Only physical dimensions (derived from XTEM) and permittivity

(extracted from planar CV measurements) were input into the simulations. Due to the unknown

fixed charge and the large roll-off of Vth as seen in section 6.2.1, the C-V characteristics were

laterally shifted to match the experimental results.

Figure 6.6: Simulated (nextnano3) hole charge density in nanowires with (a) circular (15.6×14 nm, dNW~15 nm) and (b) elliptical (22×15.7 nm) and cross-sections for VGS-VFB = -1.3 V. Inversion centroid is displaced from nanowire surface by the distance δQM (VGS). Simulation courtesy of J. Teherani.

Figure 6.6 illustrates the simulated hole charge density in nanowires with circular (15.6×14

nm, dNW ~ 15nm) and elliptical (22×15.7 nm) cross-sections, at VGS - VFB = -1.3 V. It can be seen

that the inversion centroid is displaced from the nanowire/dielectric interface by the distance

δQM(VGS). In addition, simulations reveal increased peak charge density at the sidewalls (by a

factor of ~1.9) compared to the horizontal (100) surfaces (due to the radial nature of the electric

field), indicating the importance of the sidewall roughness quality.

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Figure 6.7: Measured and nextnano3 simulated inversion capacitance of 15 nm-diameter circular and 22 nm×15.6 nm elliptical nanowires, demonstrating very good agreement between measured and simulated results, verifying the experimental mobility extraction method. Only physical dimensions (derived from TEM), κ (extracted from planar CV measurements) and Qf were input into the simulations. The upper and lower simulated curves correspond to simulations using a gate metal with high and low density of states, respectively. Simulation courtesy of J. Teherani.

The measured intrinsic capacitance of ~15 nm-diameter circular and 22 nm × 15.6 nm

elliptical nanowires, normalized to the length of the nanowires, is shown in Figure 6.7. Overlaid

are the nextnano3 simulated nanowire inversion capacitances, demonstrating quite good

agreement between measured and simulated results. To model the WN metal gate, two limits

were considered. The upper simulated curves correspond to a metal with high density of states

and free electron effective mass, showing no gate depletion. The lower simulated curves

correspond to a metal with lower density of states showing small band bending and charge

depletion. The simulations with the reduced gate depletion increased Cmax by ~8% which is

within the experimental uncertainty in any case. The simulations verify the inversion charge

estimation and mobility extraction approach, by direct integration of the measured capacitances.

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Figure 6.8 shows the measured (symbols) and simulated (lines) intrinsic capacitances for

nanowires annealed at 875°C (condition C) with nanowire diameter, dNW = 8-17 nm. The

nanowire was measured by high-resolution cross-sectional SEM (see Figure 5.8) and the

diameter was input into the simulations for the dNW = 12 and 17 nm nanowires. Again, excellent

agreement is observed between the simulated capacitance and the experimental data. For sub-10

nm nanowires, under the resolution of XSEM, the effective circular diameter (dNW,eq) was

extracted by fitting simulations to the CV measurements.

Figure 6.8: Measured (symbols) and simulated (lines) intrinsic capacitances for nanowires annealed at 875°C (condition C) with nanowire diameter, dNW = 8-17 nm. dNW was measured by high-resolution cross-sectional SEM and was input into the simulations for 12 and 17 nm nanowires. For sub-10 nm nanowires, the effective circular diameter (dNW,eq) was extracted by fitting simulations to the CV measurements. Simulation courtesy of J. Teherani.

6.3.3 Hole Mobility Investigation

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In this section, the low-field effective hole mobility of Si nanowires, with various nanowire

widths, treated without hydrogen anneal, with an optimized hydrogen anneal at 850°C, and with

hydrogen anneals at temperatures as high as 875°C which reshapes the nanowires is investigated.

6.3.3.1 Nanowires without Hydrogen Anneal

Figure 6.9 shows the effective hole mobility vs. inversion charge density (Ninv) for nanowires

with WNW = 22-72 nm, without hydrogen anneal, along with the mobility of on-chip planar SOI

p-MOSFETs. Inversion charge density was normalized by nanowire circumference. It can be

seen that all mobilities are degraded compared to the mobility of the planar SOI p-MOSFET. In

addition, similar hole mobilities are observed at high Ninv for various WNW in the range of 22-72

nm, with an average of ~20% drop compared to planar SOI device.

Figure 6.9: Effective hole mobility vs. inversion charge density (Ninv, normalized by nanowire circumference) for nanowires with WNW = 22-72 nm, without hydrogen anneal. Similar mobilities are observed at high Ninv for various WNW, with a ~20 % drop compared to planar (100) SOI device.

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Figure 6.10: (a) Effective hole mobility vs. Ninv (normalized by nanowire circumference) for nanowires with WNW = 15-72 nm subjected to hydrogen anneal at 850°C (condition B). Monotonic mobility enhancement with decreasing nanowire width is observed, due to increased contribution of high-mobility sidewalls and reduced sidewall roughness scattering. Mobility is enhanced by 47% relative to the widest nanowire and 33% over planar (100) SOI device at Ninv=1.1×1013cm-2. (b) Hole mobility vs. Ninv for 15 nm circular nanowires demonstrating mobility enhancement over planar SOI and the highest mobility of nanowires without hydrogen anneal. Significant enhancement is seen relative to published data for sub-15 nm thickness nanowires.

6.3.3.2 Nanowires with Optimized Hydrogen Anneal (Condition B)

The effective hole mobility as a function of inversion charge density of Si nanowires, with

WNW = 15 to 72 nm subjected to hydrogen anneal at 850°C (condition B) is shown in Figure 6.10

(a). Hole mobility enhancement over planar (100) SOI is observed for sub 41 nm nanowire

widths, at high inversion charge densities. In addition, monotonic mobility enhancement with

decreasing nanowire width can be seen, where the mobility is enhanced by 47% relative to the

widest nanowire and 33% over the planar (100) SOI device at Ninv=1.1×1013 cm-2. In fact,

increased contribution of high-mobility sidewalls with reduced sidewall roughness scattering is

believed to be responsible for this mobility enhancement. Figure 6.10 (b) shows the hole

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mobility vs. Ninv for 15 nm circular nanowires, demonstrating mobility enhancement over planar

SOI and the highest mobility nanowires without hydrogen anneal. Significant enhancement is

seen relative to recent published data for sub-15 nm thickness nanowires [23, 24, 138].

It should be mentioned that in all previous sections, the inversion charge density was

normalized by the circumference of the nanowires, were it was assumed that the charge is

located at the nanowire/dielectric interface. However, as can be seen in figure 6.6, the hole

centroid is displaced from surface by the distance δQM, which is a function of VGS. For planar or

very wide nanowire devices, the effective perimeter of the charge is similar to the channel width

(for planar) or physical perimeter of the surface (for nanowires). However, as the nanowire size

is decreased, the effective perimeter of the nanowire diverges from the physical perimeter of the

surface. This leads to an overestimation of the perimeter and underestimation of the Ninv, mostly

at low inversion charge densities.

Figure 6.11: Hole mobility vs. Ninv, normalized by nanowire physical perimeter (dashed line) and with quantum-mechanical (QM) correction (symbols) for circular (15.6×14 nm, dNW ~ 15 nm) and elliptical (22×15.7 nm) nanowires. The QM correction to the perimeter was calculated using simulations at each gate bias.

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To further elucidate the effects of quantum mechanical corrections, Figure 6.11 shows the

hole mobility vs. Ninv, normalized by the nanowire physical perimeter (dashed line) and with

quantum-mechanical (QM) correction (symbols) for circular (15.6×14 nm, dNW ~ 15 nm) and

elliptical (22×15.7 nm) nanowires. The quantum-mechanical correction to the perimeter was

calculated using simulations at each gate bias. It should be noted that the simulated δQM was

observed to follow the Ns-1/3 behavior, similar to equation (2.37) for planar devices. Figure 6.11

indicates that the correction involves an overdrive-dependent shift of the inversion charge

density towards the right-hand side (higher Ninv). The absence of quantum mechanical

correction leads to an overestimation and underestimation of the hole mobility, at low and high

Ninv, respectively. It can also be noted that for the relatively wide elliptical nanowire, the hole

mobility is almost insensitive of the quantum-mechanical correction, as expected.

Figure 6.12: (a) Transfer characteristics of gate-all-around nanowire p-MOSFETs (with dNW ~ 8, 10, 12, 17, 22 nm and LNW = 0.6 µm subjected to non-optimized hydrogen anneal (condition C). Non-ideal swings (>80 mV/dec) suggest that nanowires have high density of interface traps due to non-optimized condition C.

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6.3.3.3 Nanowires with Non-Optimized Hydrogen Anneal (Condition C)

As seen earlier in Figure 5.8 of chapter 5, the widths of nanowires subjected to hydrogen

anneal at higher temperatures (condition C, at 875°C) were significantly reduced, where

rectangular narrow nanowires were reshaped to nanowires with circular cross-sections and with

diameters in the sub-10 nm regime. Figure 6.12 shows the transfer characteristics of gate-all-

around nanowire p-MOSFETs (with dNW = 8, 10, 12, 17, 22 nm and LNW = 0.6 µm) subjected to

hydrogen anneal (condition C). Non ideal swings (>80 mV/dec) suggest that the nanowires have

high density of interface traps due to non-optimized condition C (recall from Table 6.1 that these

devices were first annealed at 850°C, followed wet chemical cleaning, and annealed again at

875°C, and subjected to HF dip prior to ALD).

Figure 6.13: Plots of effective hole mobility vs. inversion charge density, for nanowires with (a) WNW = 12-32 nm and (b) WNW < 12 nm subjected to non-optimized hydrogen anneal (condition C). Mobilities are generally reduced due to high density of interface traps of condition C.

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Figure 6.13 shows the effective hole mobility as a function of inversion charge density for

these nanowires with (a) dNW = 12 - 32 nm and (b) dNW < 12 nm. It can be seen that the hole

mobilities (including the planar FD-SOI) are generally reduced due to the high density of

interface traps associated with condition C, consistent with the non-ideal sub-threshold behavior.

However, the mobilities of nanowires down to dNW,eq = 10 nm exceed the mobility of the planar

FD-SOI MOSFET, particularly at high inversion charge densities. The width dependence of the

hole mobility is investigated in the following section.

Figure 6.14: Width-dependence of hole mobility for nanowires with and without hydrogen anneal, at Ninv= 5×1012 and 1013 cm-2. Flat mobility behavior is observed without hydrogen anneal due to a balance between high-mobility non-(100) planes and sidewall roughness scattering. The latter mechanism is significantly diminished with hydrogen anneal (condition B), and more than 57% enhancement is observed for WNW < 22 nm.

6.3.4 Width Dependence of Hole Mobility

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Figure 6.14 shows the hole mobility as a function of WNW, for Si nanowires with optimized

hydrogen anneal (condition B) and without anneal, at Ninv= 5×1012 and 1013 cm-2. A nearly flat

mobility behavior is observed for nanowires with no anneal, with a significant drop at around 16

nm nanowire width. The flat trend is due to a balance between increased contribution of high-

mobility non-(100) planes, and increased sidewall roughness scattering, as WNW is decreased.

For the narrowest nanowire, mobility significantly drops as the transport is completely

determined by the rough sidewalls. On the other hand, the sidewall roughness scattering is

significantly diminished with hydrogen anneal (condition B) and the mobility monotonically

increases, as the nanowire width is decreased, due to increased contribution of smooth high hole-

mobility non-(100) sidewalls. As a result, +57% enhancement is observed for WNW = 22 nm at

Ninv = 1013 cm-2.

Figure 6.15: Hole mobility of Si nanowires vs. WNW at Ninv = 1013 cm-2. Symbols correspond to the experimental results. Lines are the empirical model with μs = 70 cm2/V.s and rμ = 1.95 (dot-dashed line), μs = 50 cm2/V.s and rμ = 1.95 (solid line), and μs = 70 cm2/V.s and rμ = 0.9-1.42 (dot-dashed line) to fit the experimental data.

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To further investigate the width dependence of the hole mobility, the simple analytical model

described in chapter 4 was exploited here and the results are shown in Figure 6.15. The symbols

are experimental measurements while the lines represent the model results. Using Schrödinger-

Poisson simulations, rn = 1.6 and 1.3 was extracted for WNW = 42 and 22 nm, respectively. The rn

ratio used for the rest of the nanowires was based on a linear interpolation. The effective width of

the surface and the sidewalls were defined at the location of the charge centroid peak. Based on

the planar mobility measurements [73], the (110) and (111) surfaces have a hole mobility

enhancement ratio of 3.2X and 1.5X (at Ninv = 1013 cm-2) compared to (100) surfaces,

respectively. Thus, a mobility enhancement factor of greater than 1 (close to 2) is expected for

non-(100) sidewalls. The dotted-dashed line and solid lines in Figure 6.15 correspond to the

model with rµ = 1.95 and µs = 70 (nominal) and 50 cm2/V.s (the best fit), respectively. While

similar trend for the model and the experiments can be observed using nominal value of the

surface mobility (µs) and rµ = 1.95, the oversimplified model with these parameters overestimates

the experimental data. Considering the simulations and model are both valid, either a constant

reduction of µs (solid line) or a variable sidewall to surface mobility ratio, rµ = 0.9-1.42 (dashed

line) is required to exactly fit the experimental results. Width dependent stress in the Si

nanowires induced by WN metal gate may be a possible explanation for this mobility

dependence.

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Figure 6.16: Hole mobility in Si nanowires subjected to hydrogen anneal at 875°C (condition C) vs. nanowire diameter (width) for Ninv = 5×1012 and 1013 cm-2. Increased mobility is observed by reducing dNW to 12 nm diameter (elliptical to circular shape transition), while the mobility of sub-12 nm circular nanowires is reduced as dNW is decreased.

The variation of the hole mobility of Si nanowires subjected to hydrogen anneal at 875°C

(condition C) vs. nanowire diameter (width) is shown in Figure 6.16, for Ninv = 5×1012 and 1013

cm-2. A peak hole mobility is observed at dNW = 12 nm. The increased mobility trend by reducing

dNW to 12 nm diameter may be a result of the elliptical to circular shape transition, which

increases the contribution of smooth high hole-mobility non-(100) sidewalls. However, the

mobility of sub-12 nm circular nanowires is reduced as dNW is decreased, likely due to phonon-

limited confinement effects [156].

The nanowires treated with hydrogen anneal at 875°C (condition C) revealed extremely

smooth sidewalls by SEM. The general mobility reduction for condition C might be attributed to

the Hydrofluoric Acid dip (after hydrogen annealing) used for this process which significantly

increase the density of the interface traps. This is consistent with the degraded sub-threshold

slope for both nanowire and planar devices. Moreover, the mobility of the planar devices was

also significantly degraded which is unlikely to be a result of hydrogen anneal process. As a

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result, to compare the width dependence of the mobility for various post-suspension conditions,

the mobilities were normalized by the mobility of on-chip planar SOI p-MOSFETs, extracted for

each process condition. The normalized results at Ninv = 1013 cm-2 are shown in Figure 6.17.

Interestingly, similar hole mobilities are observed for hydrogen annealed nanowires processed at

conditions B and C, in the common range of WNW. Plotting the mobilities on a log-log scale

indicates that the mobility is proportional to the nanowire diameter, for sub-12 nm nanowire

diameters. Such width dependence suggests the increase in phonon scattering associated with

confinement of the carriers to be the dominant reason for mobility degradation at sub-12 nm

diameters [63, 156].

Figure 6.17: Comparison of the normalized hole mobility (at Ninv = 1013 cm-2) vs. nanowire width, for various post-suspension treatments. Mobilities are normalized by the mobility of on-chip planar SOI p-MOSFET, extracted for each process condition. Similar normalized mobilities are observed for hydrogen annealed nanowires processed at conditions B and C, in the common range of WNW.

6.5 Chapter Summary

149

The intrinsic performance and low-field effective hole mobility of gate-all-around nanowire

p-MOSFETs with a high-κ / metal gate process, for nanowire widths in the range of 8 to 72 nm,

are extensively studied in this chapter. The impact of high-temperature (≥850°C) hydrogen

anneal process on the drain current and hole mobility of Si nanowires, for two annealing

conditions that smooth and reshape the nanowires are also investigated. Sub-micron-long

nanowire devices exhibit near ideal sub-threshold swing of 61.1 ± 0.6 mV/dec, indicating

excellent density of interface traps comparable to high-temperature thermally grown oxide. An

enhancement of ~1.6X in saturation and linear current of 22 nm-wide nanowires were measured,

at a given overdrive, as a result of the optimized hydrogen anneal process. Devices with no

anneal show a flat mobility behavior, as a function of nanowire width down to 22 nm. This is

due to a balance between reduced contribution of low-mobility (100) planes and increased

contribution of sidewalls with considerable surface roughness, which significantly drops the

mobility for ~ 15 nm wide nanowires. On the other hand, increased hole mobility with

decreasing nanowire width down to 12 nm is observed for nanowires subjected to hydrogen

anneal. However, nanowires with sub-12 nm diameters exhibit reduced mobility mostly due to

the phonon-limited confinement of the holes in the scaled nanowires. Measured and simulated

nanowire capacitance are in very good agreement, verifying the accuracy of effective mobility

extraction. In addition, a simulation-based method to extract areal inversion charge density (Ninv)

of Si nanowires is introduced. Using this method, the effective perimeter of the nanowire is

corrected for quantum-mechanical separation of the hole centroid from the surface, leading to a

larger Ninv for a given gate overdrive and non-uniform stretching of the mobility-Ninv plots

towards higher Ninv.

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151

Chapter 7

Summary and Suggestions for Future Work 7.1 Thesis Summary

The electrical characteristics and intrinsic performance of gate-all-around nanowire

MOSFETs, fabricated using a CMOS compatible top-down approach, were investigated in this

thesis. The gate-all-around device architecture benefits from excellent gate control, cut-off

behavior and immunity to short channel effects compared to planar MOSFETs. Considering the

anisotropic effective-masses for electrons and holes as well as different valence band

mechanisms involved in hole transport at the nanowire sidewalls with various surface

orientations, degraded electron and enhanced hole transport is expected for gate-all-around

nanowire MOSFETs compared to planar fully-depleted SOI MOSFETs. However, degraded

transport is often observed for both types of carriers due to non-ideal sidewalls with rough

surfaces. To overcome this problem, two types of process-based performance boosters,

applicable on suspended Si nanowires, were developed in this thesis: a novel uniaxial strain

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engineering method for n-MOSFETs and hydrogen thermal annealing process for p-MOSFETs.

The impact of these performance boosters on the transport properties of gate-all-around nanowire

MOSFETs with various channel dimensions were studied in detail.

Uniaxial tension was incorporated into the Si nanowire channel by lateral relaxation and

suspension of biaxial SSDOI substrates, strained to Si0.7Ge0.3 virtual substrates with high stress

levels of 2.1 GPa. Detailed Raman studies on the long nanowires indicate that these nanowires

are strained, even after suspension with a tensile stress level of 2 ± 0.3 GPa, which is mainly

uniaxial along the direction of these long nanowires. Gate-all-around strained-Si nanowire n-

MOSFETs were fabricated with nanowire width, WNW, in the range of 8 to 50 nm and body

thickness, tNW, of 7 to 8.7 nm as confirmed by cross-sectional transmission-electron-microscopy.

The detailed electrical measurements and analysis reveal that uniaxial strain in the nanowire

results in negative Vth shift in strained-Si nanowires compared to their unstrained counterparts.

In addition, a significant enhancement of approximately 2X in long-channel current drive and

transconductance was observed for strained-Si nanowires. Low-field effective mobility of these

devices was extracted using split capacitance-voltage measurements and two-FET method to

cancel the capacitive and resistive parasitics. The mobility analysis indicates enhancement for

strained-Si nanowires over unstrained Si nanowires as well as planar SOI, specifically at high

inversion charge densities. The results also show significant enhancement over the previous

reported data on unstrained-Si nanowire n-MOSFETs, fabricated using different techniques.

However, the mobility of these nanowires was shown to decrease with down-scaling the

nanowire widths, consistent with the reported data on the Si nanowires. A simple model was

developed to investigate the contribution of the sidewalls. Comparison of the model and

experimental data for both strained and unstrained Si nanowires suggests that the mobility

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reduction is more than what expected by the contribution of the orientation-dependent sidewall

mobilities solely and was attributed to the increased contribution of the sidewalls with high-

surface roughness scattering.

On the p-MOSFET front, a new design approach was used to accurately investigate the

intrinsic transport and hole mobility of Si nanowires. The new design features nanowires with

tighter contact design (compared to the previously developed process for n-MOSFETs) and

increased number of parallel nanowires (N = 500) to achieve a larger capacitance signal for the

sub-micron long nanowires, which usually offer capacitances in the order of a few tenths of

fF/µm per nanowire. Moreover, the new process combines a high-κ/metal gate process to

uniformly gate various planes involved in the transport as well as an optimized high-temperature

hydrogen anneal to reduce surface roughness scattering. Using this process, long-channel devices

with ideal subthreshold swing (61.1±0.6 mV/dec) were demonstrated. The maskless hydrogen

thermal anneal process on suspended Si nanowires was shown to significantly smooth nanowire

sidewalls and results in evolution of crystallographic 311, 111 and 110 sidewall facets.

Furthermore, an anisotropic etching and reshaping of Si nanowires was observed after hydrogen

thermal annealing at temperatures higher than 875°C. The electrical characterization of gate-all-

around nanowire p-MOSFETs reveals that approximately 1.6X enhancement can be achieved in

hole mobility and linear and saturation ID as a results of an optimized hydrogen anneal process.

Detailed low-field effective hole mobility of sub-micron-long nanowires was studied down to

sub-10 nm nanowires diameter. For this purpose, the intrinsic inversion capacitance of the

nanowires were measured by two-FET method and the results were verified by quantum

mechanical Schrödinger-Poisson’s simulations. The control Si nanowire with no hydrogen

anneal showed a flat mobility behavior with reducing nanowire width down to 22 nm and a hole

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mobility drop at ~15 nm diameter, where the transport is fully-dominated by the rough sidewalls.

On the other hand, increased effective hole mobility with decreasing nanowire width was

observed down to 12 nm for hydrogen annealed nanowires, attributed to the smooth high-

mobility non-(110) sidewalls. Mobility reduction was observed for sub-12 nm nanowires, mainly

due to the phonon-limited confinement effects. A simulation-based method to extract areal

inversion charge density (Ninv) of Si nanowires was also introduced. Using this method, the

effective perimeter of the nanowire can be corrected for quantum-mechanical separation of the

hole centroid from the nanowire/dielectric interface, leading to a larger Ninv for a given gate

overdrive and non-uniformly stretching the mobility-Ninv plots towards higher Ninv .

In conclusion, without strain-engineering, gate-all-around Si nanowires exhibit enhanced

hole mobility and degraded electron mobility compared to planar fully-depleted SOI MOSFETs.

This study reveals that circular nanowires can enhance the hole mobility by +33% over planar

unstrained-SOI p-MOSFETs, while degraded electron mobility was observed for the entire range

of nanowire width studied. For high-performance CMOS applications, uniaxial strain

engineering is mandatory to further improve nanowire transport behavior to be comparable to

state-of-the art stress-engineered MOSFETs. For the strained-Si nanowire n-MOSFETs studied

in this thesis, a mobility enhancement of ~0-70% was observed compared to planar ultra-thin-

body planar SOI n-MOSFETs (with a body thickness of 8 nm), at high inversion charge

densities. While the results are promising, further strain engineering and sidewall improvements

are required for Si nanowires to be considered as future candidates for future HP CMOS

generations. However, possessing excellent scalability with undoped channel, Si nanowire

technology is promising candidate for low-variability, low-power CMOS applications.

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For n-MOSFETs, the naturally low-electron mobility Si nanowire sidewalls, even with

smooth surface, degrade the overall performance of the device and with very-high level of the

uniaxial tension is mandatory to compensate this degraded performance and enhance mobility

planar devices. Application of high-levels of uniaxial compression to the short channel Si

nanowire p-MOSFETs, though technologically difficult, can improve their performance to be

comparable to HP state-of-the-art transistors.

7.2 Suggestions for Future Work

In the future new materials will be required to further enhance carrier transport. One such

material is SiGe and Ge. SiGe provides enhanced hole transport, and Ge is expected to improved

both electron and hole mobilities. A list of suggested future work to possibly enhance the

transport of multi-gate nanowire SiGe transistors over Si nanowires is provided below:

• Top-down fabrication of Ge nanowire p-MOSFETs by selective growth of high-quality

relaxed Ge on Si micro- or nano-trenches, locally opened on oxide-passivated Si substrates

and investigation of carrier transport on Germanium nanowires n- and p-MOSFETs

• Epitaxial growth of strained-SiGe or pure-Ge on sub-10 nm Si nanowire fins, subjected to

hydrogen anneal and transport study of gate-all-around p-MOSFETs

• Epitaxial growth of high-quality strained-Ge on ultra-thin-body SSDOI substrates to realize

uniaxial strained-Ge nanowire fins by nano-patterning and lateral relaxation

• Investigation of hole transport in uniaxial compressively-strained Germanium nanowire p-

MOSFETs

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7.3 Contributions

The main contributions of this thesis are summarized as follows:

• Realization and characterization of suspended uniaxially strained-Si nanowires [133, 157]

• Process development for gate-all-around Si and strained-Si nanowire n-MOSFETs [158]

• Transport enhancement and electron mobility investigation of strained-Si nanowire n-

MOSFETs [159, 160]

• Realization of strain retention in vertically stacked strained-Si nanowires [137]

• Study and optimization of maskless hydrogen anneal on suspended Si nanowires[161]

• Development of process for gate-all-around nanowire p-FETs with high-κ/metal-gate and

high-temperature hydrogen anneal [161]

• Detailed hole mobility study of gate-all-around nanowire p-FETs and the role of hydrogen

anneal [161]

• Process development for asymmetrically strained (~2%) Ge heterostructure on insulator

[131, 162]

• Selective epitaxy of SiGe and Ge on Si nanowires [125, 137]

• Process development and mobility study of Si/Ge core-shell nanowire p-FETs [125, 137]

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Appendix A

E-beam Lithography with Hydrogen Silsesquioxane Negative-Tone Resist A.1 Hydrogen Silsesquioxane Negative-Tone Resist

E-beam lithography utilized in this thesis to fabricate Si nanowires was performed in a Raith

150™ system. A process was optimized for Hydrogen SilsesQuioxane (HSQ) negative-tone e-

beam resist. HSQ is a spin-on dielectric with the chemical formula of (HSiO3/2)n, where n is the

number of monomers with a typical value of n = 8, forming a cage-like structure [163, 164].

Upon exposure, high energy electron beam breaks the Si-H bonds and reconfigures the cage-like

HSQ to a long-range network via a cross-linking process [165]. HSQ used in this thesis was a

flowable oxide (FOx) diluted with Methyl-IsoButyl-Ketone (MIBK), available under trade name

of XR-1541™ (from Dow-Corning®). The development mechanism of HSQ is suggested to be

via ionization by bond-decision, rather than dissolution [165]. Hydroxide (OH-) ions in the

developer such as Tetra-Methyl-Ammonium Hydroxide (TMAH) can break the Si-H bonds,

form stronger Si-O bonds and can be carried away the (CH3)4N+ ions and water molecules [166].

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Spinning of the 4% solid XR1541 was performed at a speed of 3500 rpm and a thickness of

~90 nm was measured using laser interferometer and Dektak™ profilometer. Reusable

Polypropylene (PP) pipettes, cleaned with Hydrofluoric Acid and DI water, were used to drop

the resist on the entire wafer. Table A.1 summarizes the optimized process used in this thesis for

e-beam lithography using 4% XR1541 negative tone resist.

Step # Process Step Process Details

0 Resist Storage Refrigerate XR1541 4% in a plastic container (from provider)

1 Resist Spin Bring the resist to room temperature, drop by PP pipettes to

cover the entire wafer, spin at 3500 rpm for 1 min using TRL-PMMA Spinner

2 Prebake at 90°C for 2 minutes on a hot-plate

3 Exposure

Immediately after spin, using Raith 150™, e-beam energy: 30 keV (with SEM imaging operated at SE mode), field size: 100 μm, beam diameter: 2 nm, areal dose: 1200 µC/cm2, beam

current: ~230-280 pA 4 Development Usually within 8 hrs, in 25% TMAH for 70 sec, spin/rinse/dry

5 Cleaning 3:1 H2SO4: H2O2, optional SC2 (6:1:1 DI:H2O2:HCl), plasma

ashing for 1 min

Table A.1: Optimized process flow for e-beam lithography using HSQ negative-tone resist.

Figure A.1: Plot of relative remaining Hydrogen Silsesquioxane (HSQ) thickness vs. exposure dose for HSQ on HOI samples exposed at 10 keV and 30 keV. Both samples were prebaked at 90°C for 4 minutes and developed with 25 wt. % TMAH for 1 minute. While similar contrast is observed, higher dose is required to expose HSQ at energy of 30 keV.

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The performance of any resist is usually characterized by its contrast curve. This curve

describes the remaining resist fraction of a uniformly illuminated resist vs. the logarithm of the

applied exposure dose. The contrast is a measure of how well the resist can convert the distorted

patterns of a blurred aerial image into a sharp binary stencil, and directly affects the resolution of

the entire lithography process. Figure A.1 shows the contrast curves of XR-1541 resist for

incident beam energies of 10 keV (the typically used energy for Raith 150 system) and 30 keV

(the highest available energy for Raith 150 system). The starting substrates were Ge HOI wafer

pieces, with prebake and development conditions specified in Table A.1. The relative thickness

of the resist was measured using Dektak™ profilometer on 10×10 µm2 squares, at each exposure

dose in the range of 100-2000 μC/cm2. While imaging at higher energies is typically worse than

lower energies due to the higher volume of scattering, e-beam lithography at higher energies has

certain benefits. From the basic scattering theory, the energy transferred by collision of incident

electrons, T, is inversely proportional the incident electron energy, E, given by:

(A.1)

where q is the charge of the electron and b is the distance of the closest approach between the

electrons. In fact, a decrease of electron energy causes an increase of deposited energy in a given

resist volume (larger T), which explains why the saturation dose is lower at lower incident

energies (Figure A.1). However, exposure at lower energies increases the forward scattering

effects which results in increased proximity effects. Chromatic aberration is also less using

higher acceleration voltages.

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Figure A.2: Contrast curve for 4% XR-1541 Hydrogen Silsesquioxane (HSQ) exposed at 30 keV and developed in 0.26N TMAH and 25 wt. % TMAH at the room temperature. The contrast is significantly enhanced using 25 wt. % TMAH.

Figure A.3: Contrast curve for 4% XR-1541 Hydrogen Silsesquioxane (HSQ) prebaked at 200°C and 90°C for 2 minutes, exposed at 30 keV and developed in 25 wt. % TMAH for 1 minute. While similar contrast is observed, prebaking at 90°C has a wider exposure window.

As mentioned earlier, TMAH is commonly used for HSQ development. Two types of TMAH

chemistries are typically used in CMOS and semiconductor manufacturing: 0.26N TMAH,

which is commonly used to develop photoresists, and 25 wt. % TMAH, which is used to etch Si

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at elevated temperatures (around 80°C). Figure A.2 shows the contrast curve for 4% XR-1541

HSQ exposed at 30 keV and developed in 0.26N TMAH and 25 wt. % TMAH at the room

temperature. The contrast (defined as slope of the relative thickness vs. dose) is significantly

enhanced using 25 wt. % TMAH.

Resist prebake is often used to evaporate the remaining solvent in the resist. Figure A.3

shows the contrast curve for XR-1541 prebaked at 90°C and 200°C. While, similar contrast is

observed for both conditions, prebake at 90°C shows a slightly less saturation dose. For practical

purpose, as the contrast curves are very similar and to save time, a prebake at 90°C was chosen.

In addition, no change in the resolution was observed even for samples without any prebake.

Figure A.4: (a) Typical plan-view SEM image of 20 nm-wide 4% XR-1541 Hydrogen Silsesquioxane (HSQ) line and (b) corresponding line edge profile. HSQ was developed in 25 wt % TMAH for 60 seconds. (c) Tilted SEM image of HSQ lines (various width) on Si wafer after Si etch and (d) magnified cross-sectional SEM of 17.3 nm HSQ line (with an aspect ratio of ~5) on a Si fin.

Figure A.4 (a) and (b) illustrate a typical plan-view SEM image of a 20 nm-wide 4% XR-

1541 HSQ line and the corresponding line edge profile. The profile analysis shows a line width

average (Wavg) of 20.0 nm (similar to the targeted value) with a variation characterized by 3σ =

2.4 nm. The minimum line width achieved using a 90 nm HSQ is around 17 nm. Figure A.4 (c)

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shows tilted (low-angle) cross-sectional SEM image of HSQ lines with various line width on a Si

wafer after Si reactive-ion etch in Cl2/HBr plasma. HSQ shows very high etch selectivity to Si

etch and very high adhesion to Si, which makes it a good candidate to be used as the prototype of

non-planar Si MOSFETs, for technology development purposes. Figure A.4 (d) shows a high-

magnification cross-sectional SEM image of a high aspect-ratio (~5) 17.3 nm-wide HSQ line on

top of a Si fin.

Figure A.5: SEM images of the e-beam alignment marks with various sizes in the range of ~0.2 µm to ~ 6 µm created by photolithography and over-exposure.

A.2 Hybrid Lithography

E-beam lithography is a very low throughput process, mostly due to the slow transition of the

stage. As a result, e-beam lithography was only used to create critical dimensions (such as

nanowire or short gate lengths) and the rest was done using photolithography with a better

overlay accuracy and much higher throughput. For example, in fabrication of nanowire

transistors used in this thesis, the nanowires were patterned using e-beam lithography while the

S/D anchors were patterned by photolithography using an i-line Nikon stepper. Toward this end,

cross-like e-beam alignment marks, with cross widths as narrow as 250 nm, were fabricated by

photolithography using a separate mask at a few locations near device regions. This global mask

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also contains the alignment marks needed for the following photolithography step to pattern

active regions. The crosses were then etched through the SOI layer and buried oxide and into the

bulk Si layer, forming a total step height of ~0.8-1 μm. This provides acceptable (though not

great) contrast when imaging using SE mode at energy of 30 keV. Figure A.5 shows a series of

SEM images of e-beam alignment marks with various sizes in the range of ~0.2 µm to ~6 µm

created by photolithography and over-exposure. Three of these alignment marks were used for

each exposure using Raith 150 system, via “three-point alignment” technique. After e-beam

lithography, developing and cleaning, the sample was coated with photoresist (~ 1 µm thick),

exposed and developed. The developer is compatible with HSQ and doesn’t impact the e-beam

lithography. Figure A.6 (a) shows an SEM image of e-beam and photo-resists on top of an SOI

wafer, patterned using hybrid lithography. A similar structure after Si reactive-ion etching and

photoresist ashing is shown in Figure A.6 (b). The HSQ was removed in the 50:1 DI water: HF

dip to release the Si nanowire.

Figure A.6: SEM image of nanowire/pad structure created using hybrid lithography process (a) before Si reactive-ion etching and (b) after Si reactive-ion etching and photoresist ashing.

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Figure A.7: SEM images of ultra-dense 10 nm 6% XR-1541 Hydrogen Silsesquioxane (HSQ) lines in 30 nm pitch achieved by a salty developed.

A.3 Fabrication Process for Ultra-Dense Si Nanowires

As discussed earlier in section 3.3, fabrication of ultra-dense strained-Si nanowires has

potential to enhance the Raman signal-to-noise ratio for sub-20 nm nanowire widths. Ultra-dense

suspended strained-Si nanowires were fabricated utilizing resolution improved e-beam

lithography, with thin-body HSQ. For this purpose, 6% solid XR1541™ negative tone e-beam

resist was first diluted in MIBK in a 1 HSQ: 3 MIBK by volume ratio and spin-coated onto the

sample at a speed of 6000 rpm to a thickness of 35 nm. The sample was then exposed in a

Raith150™ electron-beam lithography tool at a 30 kV acceleration voltage. Nanowire structures

were exposed using single-pass lines with the linear dose of 14.0-24.3 mC/cm while the large

pads were exposed as filled-in rectangles using an areal dose of 2.2 mC/cm2. The sample was

typically exposed within 4 hours of resist spin-coating. A high-contrast salty development

process of HSQ was used to achieve dense, high-resolution structures [134]. The sample was

then developed in an aqueous mixture of 1% NaOH and 4% NaCl at 24°C for 4 minutes, then

rinsed in DI water and dried using a pressurized N2 gun. The addition of NaCl salt to aqueous

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NaOH developer was found to increase the contrast of the resist, which enabled the fabrication of

high-resolution nanostructures with minimal loss in resist thickness [134]. The subsequent

process steps were similar to the steps discussed earlier in this appendix. Figure A.7 illustrates

sample high-resolution SEM images of ultra-dense (33 nanowire per micron) 10 nm resist lines

in 30 nm pitch.

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167

Appendix B Raman Spectroscopy of Strained-Si Nanowires B.1 Raman Characterization of Suspended Nanowires

This section provides with the Raman data used to characterize the stress in suspended

strained-Si nanowires, introduced in section 3.3. The UV Raman spectrometer was operated in

additive mode using 325 nm He-Cd laser line, with a power density was ~300 kW/cm2 and the

beam diameter was ~0.4 μm. The Raman spectra of the Si-Si LO phonon mode of suspended

strained-Si nanowires with pads attached to the buried oxide with widths of 40, 25, and 20 nm

are shown in Figure B.1 (a)-(c), respectively. The nanowires were ~20 nm thick and 2 μm long.

The laser was scanned from pad to pad in a direction parallel to the nanowire length.

All strain calculations are based on a manual software fit to the spectral data using one or two

Lorentzian functions depending on the overall signal line shape and position of the laser beam,

after canceling the linear background signal (for example of such a fit, see Fig. 9). Stress errors

were calculated based on various sources such as unstrained Si reference frequency, SSOI

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frequency, phonon deformation potentials, and elastic constants. These measurements were

performed at the limit of both the spatial and spectral resolution of convention UV micro-Raman

and the data and analysis should be viewed within that context. Additionally, micro-Raman

configurations are not conducive to observing the TO phonon band and thus a planar stress

model with biaxial strain is generally assumed. Therefore, to calculate stress in nanowire and

pad regions from the observed peak shifts, isotropic biaxial relaxation was assumed.

Figure B.1: Raman spectra of the Si-Si LO phonon mode as the laser is scanned from pad to pad in a direction parallel to the nanowire length for (a) 40 nm, (b) 25 nm and (c) 20 nm-wide nanowires. The nanowires are ~25 nm thick and 2 μm long.

The total in-plane stress, σxx + σyy, for the structures with nanowire widths of 40 to 20 nm are

shown in Figure B.2 (a)-(d). The location of the spectra corresponding to the signal from the

nanowires is indicated in each plot. It should be noted that the y-axis in Figure B.2 corresponds

to the sum of the stress in two perpendicular in-plane directions, and micro-Raman

measurements are not able to resolve the individual in-plane stress components. After

suspension, since the wires are free standing, elastic in-plane relaxation in the direction

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perpendicular to the nanowires is highly likely, and we can assume that the strain is mainly

uniaxial with only a longitudinal component remaining.

Figure B.2: Total in-plane stress extracted from the data assuming biaxial isotropic strain for each spectrum along the Raman line scan for nanowires with widths of (a) 40, (b) 30, (c) 25, and (d) 20 nm.

B.2 Raman Characterization of Ultra-Dense Strained-Si Nanowires

UV micro Raman spectroscopy with a 325 nm He-Cd laser line was used to measure the

stress in ultra-dense suspended nanowires. The Raman spectrometer was operated at a high

power density of 280 kW/cm2 to enhance the relatively weak SNR from the nanowires. Fig. 9

shows the spectra of the Si LO phonon for nanowires measured at power densities of 122 and

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280 kW/cm2. The total in-plane stress measured at higher power density is around 0.18 GPa

more than the stress measured at lower power density. This artificial shift in the phonon

frequency is due to laser heating, which hydrostatically expands the lattice and redshifts the

phonon frequency [161].

Figure B.3: (a) Low (b) and high laser power spectra of the Si LO phonons from the nanowires and substrate. Thermal expansion contributes to an apparent ~0.18 GPa total in-plane stress shift in the high power case.

Figure B.4: (a) Raman spectra of the Si-Si LO phonon mode and (b) total in-plane stress as the laser is scanned from pad to pad in a direction parallel to the nanowire length, for ultra-dense 18 nm-wide nanowires. The nanowire pitch size was reduced to 40 nm to improve the Raman signal-to-noise ratio.

Raman spectra of the Si-Si LO phonon mode and total in-plane stress for ultra dense 18 nm-

wide nanowires at 40 nm pitch are shown in Figure B.4 (a) and (b), respectively. The Raman

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spectra associated with the pads and 1 μm long nanowires are indicated. The nanowires are

strained to total in-plane stress of 1.7 GPa.

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Appendix C Fabrication Flow and Stress Characterization of Vertically-Stacked Strained-Si Nanowires C.1 Starting Substrates

The schematic of the starting substrates used to fabricate vertically-stacked strained-Si

nanowires is shown in Figure C.1 (a) and (b). Starting 150 mm p-type Si wafers were RCA

cleaned, followed by deposition of 250 nm epitaxial Si, 3 µm graded Si1-xGex (x = 0 - 0.30), and

500 nm relaxed Si0.7Ge0.3 layers. Then a superlattice with N periods of strained-Si / relaxed

Si0.7Ge0.3 layers were in-situ grown. All layers were grown in an Applied Material Epi Centura™

chemical-vapor-deposition reactor.

Micro–Raman spectroscopy was used to measure the amount of strain in the as-grown

substrates as well as the nanowires. The micro-Raman measurements were performed in a

backscatter configuration (no sample tilt) with an Olympus™ 0.8 NA objective, allowing for

sub-micron spatial resolution. The signal was energy dispersed with an Acton SP-275

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spectrometer and collected with an Andor iDus™ CCD camera. The system resolution was 3.6

cm-1 when using the 458 nm argon laser line with an average power of 1 mW for excitation. The

XY-movement of the excitation on the device structure was controlled with a Burleigh

Inchworm™ stage capable of 50 nm step size.

Figure C.1: Schematic of starting as-grown epitaxial substrates with (a) single and (b) N = 5 period superlattice of strained-Si/Si0.7Ge0.3; (c) Raman spectra of the Si LO phonon from the as grown substrate with N = 5 periods using 4 different excitation wavelengths which vary the penetration depth into the layers. No change in Raman peak position was observed using different laser lines with different penetration depths, indicating similar stress in all layers; (d) Raman spectra of starting substrates with N=1 to 5 periods using 458 nm laser and (e) relative Raman shift from a Si reference corresponding to strained-Si and relaxed SiGe peaks. For all samples (up to 5 periods), the starting substrates show fully strained Si. The bulk Si signal is successfully eliminated for an excitation wavelength of 458 nm via the intervening thick relaxed SiGe layer.

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Figure C.1 (c) shows the Raman spectra of the starting substrate with N = 5 periods using 4

different excitation wavelengths which vary the penetration depth into the layers. According to

experiments conducted by Holtz et al. [168], the 458 nm line samples the first two layers (60

nm), the 488 nm line approximates the first 4 layers (200 nm), the 532 nm line approximates all

5 layers plus the relaxed SiGe buffer (500 nm), and the 647 nm line penetrates into the graded

SiGe and shows a low Ge allowable Si peak at 520.5 cm-1. This is slightly lower than the

Reference Si measured signal. The strained-Si peak position is about 512.2 cm-1 for all but the

647 nm case which has a peak at 511.8 cm-1. The Si-Si mode of the SiGe peak is nearly 501.6

cm-1 for all spectra except 647 nm case which has a peak at 501.3 cm-1. Hence, the 458 nm laser

line was utilized in the subsequent measurements to collect signal from the top layers.

Raman spectra of the Si LO phonon from starting substrates with N = 1 to 5 periods and their

relative Raman shifts from a Si reference are shown in Figure C.1 (d) and (e). Two peaks are

discernible in all spectra: the right one corresponds to biaxially-strained-Si and the left one

corresponds to relaxed Si0.7Ge0.3. As can be seen from the spectra, compared to experiments

performed on the strained-Si directly on insulator substrates (section 3.3.1), the use of a thick,

relaxed SiGe substrate in the present structures blocks the signal from the bulk Si substrate,

reducing interference between the bulk and strained-Si peaks. As a result, enhanced signal to

noise ratio is expected when scanning the strained-Si nanowires. Figure C.1 also indicates that

the Si is fully strained even after 5 periods, with an average biaxial tensile strain 1.17% (2.1

GPa).

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C.2 Fabrication Steps

Table C.1 provides with process details to fabricate vertically-stacked strained-Si nanowires.

Step # Process Step Process Details Machine Name

1 RCA Clean p-Si wafer or 30% SSDOI cleaned using standard RCA

recipe, followed by HF dip and SRD at the end RCA/ICL

2 Epitaxy

For Si: Epitaxial growth of 250 nm Si, 3 µm graded Si1-xGex (x = 0 - 0.30), 500 nm relaxed Si0.7Ge0.3,

followed by N periods of strained-Si/ relaxed Si0.7Ge0.3, for SSDOI: N-1 periods of relaxed Si0.7Ge0.3/

strained-Si

Epi Centura/ICL

3 E-beam

Lithography Similar to Table A.1, various widths in 100-nm pitch

PMMA Spinner/TRL, SEBL/RLE,

Acidhood2/TRL

4 Pattern Transfer Time controlled Cl/HBr RIE (~75 sec, Si etch rate: 4

nm/sec, SiGe etch rate: 5.2 nm), recipe: PouyaSiEtch1 AME5000/ICL

5 Resist Strip in 50:1 DI:HF, for 1 min Acidhood2/TRL

6 Selective SiGe

Removal in 3:2:1 CH3COOH:H2O2:HF bath for 1 minute, the

bath was stabilized for 4 hours before process Acidhood2/TRL

7 Imaging SEM imaging SEMZeiss/ICL Table C.1: Process flow utilized to realize vertically stacked strained-Si nanowires.

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Appendix D Process Flow for Gate-All-Around Si (Strained-Si) Nanowire n-MOSFETs D.1 Fabrication Flow

Table D.1 shows the process flow used to fabricate gate-all-around nanowire n-MOSFETs with

LTO/Poly-Si gate stack at MIT Microsystems Technology Laboratories and MIT Research

Laboratories of Electronics.

Step # Process Step Process Details Machine Name

1

Substrate Preparation

(30% SSDOI and Control SOI)

Control SOI: sacrificial wet oxidation at 800 °C (recipe: 3W800) and removal in buffered

oxide etch

RCA/ICL, 5C-FieldOx/ICL, oxEtch-

BOE/ICL Both substrates: Si thinning by multiple steps

of SC1 (1 min), HF (10 sec) to tSi = 24 nm. Acidhood2/TRL

2 Elipsometry Measurements of Si thickness, go to step #1

until desired thickness is achieved UV1280/ICL

3 PR Coating Recipe: T1HMDS coater6/ICL

4 Photolithography E-beam alignment-mark (EAM) layer, reticle:

Pouya 1, recipe: POUYA-EAM Focus: 0, exposure time: 180 msec

i-stepper/ICL

5 PR Developing Recipe: DEV6 coater6/ICL

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6 E-beam Alignment Mark (EAM) Etch

Recipes: CAIT OX BT: as original, 5000STI: 25 sec, BASELINE OX NEW: 110 sec,

5000STI: 30 sec, deep into Si AME5000/ICL

7 PR Ashing 2 min Asher-ICL/ICL

8 Resist Spin Bringing resist to the room temperature, drop by PP pipettes all over the wafer, spin at 3500

rpm for 1min PMMA spinner/TRL

9 Prebake at 90°C, for 2 minutes Hot-plate/TRL

10 E-beam Exposure

Immediately after spin, using Raith 150™, e-beam energy: 30 keV (with SEM imaging

operated at SE mode), field size: 100 μm, beam diameter: 2 nm, areal dose: 1200 µC/cm2,

beam current: ~230-280 pA

Raith150/SEBL

11 Development within 8 hrs (often immediately), in 25%

TMAH for 70 sec, spin/rinse/dry Acidhood2/TRL

12 Post SEBL Clean 3:1 H2SO4: H2O2 for 5 min Acidhood2/TRL 13 PR Ashing 2 min Asher-ICL/ICL 14 PR Coating Recipe: T1HMDS coater6/ICL

15 Photolithography Mesa layer, reticle: Pouya 1, recipe: POUYA-

STI Focus: 0, exposure time: 145 msec i-stepper/ICL

16 PR Developing Recipe: DEV6 coater6/ICL

17 Metrology Check if the photo to e-beam alignment is

acceptable, if not go to step 13 SEM/ICL

18 NW Etch

Mesa and NW/pad RIE, Recipes: POUYA OX BT:15 sec resist descum, 2 sec native oxide

breakthrough) + POUYA NW ETCH: 20 sec main, 5 sec soft, 15 sec overetch (OE)

AME5000/ICL

19 PR Ashing 2 minutes ashing Asher-ICL/ICL 20 Elipsometry Measure Si and BOX thicknesses UV1280/ICL

21 NW Release / HSQ

Strip Time controlled wet etch in 50:1 DI-H2O:HF Acidhood2/TRL

22 Elipsometry Measure BOX thicknesses, go to step 21 until the desired undercut is achieved (~50-70 nm

tBOX reduction) UV1280/ICL

23 Clean Standard RCA clean RCA/ICL

24 LTO Deposition Recipe: LTO-Gate1, 9 min (total run: 2 hr and

41 min), 2 controls (tox = 13.3 nm) 6C-LTO/ICL

25 Poly-Si Deposition N+ doped-poly-Si deposition, Recipe:

560DOPED-PH3Flat, 1hr and 18 min (78min), (total run time: 4 hr and 22 min)

6A-nPoly/ICL

26 Elipsometry tpoly=79 nm UV1280/ICL 27 PR Coating Recipe: T1HMDS coater6/ICL

28 Photolithography Gate layer, reticle: Pouya 1, recipe: POUYA-FG Reticle shift: 11000.28,11000.10, Focus:

0, exposure time: 135 msec i-stepper/ICL

29 PR Developing Recipe: DEV6 coater6/ICL

30 Metrology Check if the alignment is acceptable, if not ash

PR and then go to step 27 until desired alignment is achieved

SEM/ICL, Asher-ICL/ICL

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31 Gate Etch Poly-Si gate etching, recipe: CAIT OX BT ( DESCUM: 10 sec, BT: 8 sec), CAIT SOFT

POLY ETCH, OE = 20 sec AME5000/ICL

32 Elipsometry tSi = 15 nm on the large pads, tox = 13.8 nm UV1280/ICL 33 PR Strip Double Piranha clean, no HF Premetal-Piranha/ICL 34 Clean Modified RCA clean: Piranha, HF, SC2 RCA/ICL

35 Screen Oxide

Deposition Recipe: LTO-Gate1, 7 min 6C-LTO/ICL

36 Elipsometry Total tox=15 nm UV1280/ICL

37 Ion Implantation Phosphorous, no tilt, dose: 2.5×1015 cm-2,

energy: 14keV Innovion Corp.

38 Post Implant Clean Double Piranha clean Premetal-Piranha/ICL 39 PR Coating Recipe: T1HMDS coater6/ICL

40 Photolithography Stringer etch layer, reticle: Pouya 3, recipe: POUYA-SS1, Focus: 0, exposure time: 160

msec i-stepper/ICL

41 PR Developing Recipe: DEV6 coater6/ICL 42 PR Ashing 2 minutes ashing Asher-ICL/ICL 43 Pre-RCA Clean Piranha clean Premetal-Piranha/ICL

44 Clean Modified RCA clean: piranha (10 min), HF (5

sec), SC2 (12 min) RCA/ICL

45 ILD Deposition Inter-Layer-Dielectric (ILD) deposition,

Recipe: LTO Gate1, 2 hr:20 min (total run time: 5 hr:41 min) + 5 control wafers

6C-LTO/ICL

46 Elipsometry tox = 135-140 nm UV1280/ICL 47 PR Coating Recipe: T1HMDS coater6/ICL

48 Backside Oxide

Etch 40 sec in BOE (etch rate: 5.55 nm/sec) oxEtch-BOE/ICL

49 Clean Double Piranha clean Premetal-Piranha/ICL

50 S/D/G Activation Recipe 625a800: (2 min at 625°C, 10 sec at

800°C) RTP-Si/ICL

51 Forming-Gas

Anneal 500°C, 30 min in forming gas (H2/N2) A3-Sinter/TRL

52 PR Coating Recipe: T1HMDS coater6/ICL

53 Photolithography Contact via layer, reticle: Pouya 1, recipe: POUYA-FV, Focus: 0, exposure time: 150

msec i-stepper/ICL

54 PR Developing Recipe: DEV6 coater6/ICL

55 Oxide RIE Oxide etch until ~10-15 nm oxide remains Centura/ICL or AME5000/ICL

56 Elipsometry tox = 13 nm UV1280/ICL 57 Oxide Wet Etch 50:1 DI: HF Acidhood2/TRL

58 Elipsometry tox < 1 nm was measured (below measurement

accuracy limit of the system) UV1280/ICL

59 PR Ashing 2 minutes ashing Asher-ICL/ICL 60 Pre-metal Clean Double Piranha clean + 10 sec 50:1 DI:HF Premetal-Piranha/ICL

62 Metal Deposition 1.5 kÅ Ti/ 1 µm Al, on two dummies as well, total process time: 1 hr:10 min for 6 wafers

Endure/ICL

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63 PR Coating Recipe: T1HMDS coater6/ICL

64 Photolithography Metal layer, reticle: Pouya 2, recipe: POUYA-

FM, Focus: 0, exposure time: 140 msec i-stepper/ICL

65 PR Developing Recipe: DEV6 coater6/ICL

66 Metal RIE Metal Etch, recipe: Pouya-metaletch-AlTi:100

sec + 10 sec overetch Rainbow/ICL

67 PR Ashing 3.5 minutes ashing Asher-ICL/ICL

68 Forming-Gas

Anneal At 450°C, for 30 min in forming gas (H2/N2) A3-Sinter/TRL

69 Measurements and

Imaging SEM imaging after electrical measurements SEM/ICL

Table D.1: process flow to fabricate gate-all-around nanowire n-MOSFETs.

Figure D.1: (a) SEM image of the gate photoresist on the S/D anchors after successive alignment corrections, demonstrating excellent alignment (< 30 nm accuracy). (b) SEM image of the photoresist masking layer to etch poly-Si stringers from the S/D anchor edges. Note this is a test structure with no poly-Si gate (not a real device) to demonstrate the position of the stringer-etch mask.

D.2 Gate-Alignment and Stringer Etch

As the gate overlay on the nanowires is required through a non-self-aligned photolithography

step, it is important to fabricate a symmetric device with minimal misalignment. Towards this

end, the gate layer was exposed using a Nikon stepper and devices located on the neighboring

die from the nanowire devices were imaged by SEM. Any misalignments were then calculated

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and stored and the photoresist was stripped and respun. The stored misalignments were input to

the Nikon stepper, the reticle was shifted accordingly, and the wafers were re-exposed. This

sequence is repeated, usually two or three times, until the desired accuracy (less than 30 nm) is

achieved. Figure D.1 (a) shows an SEM micrograph of the gate photoresist mask aligned to the

S/D anchor test structure.

To etch the poly-Si gate stringers formed on the S/D edges due to simultaneous undercut of

the nanowires as well as S/D edges, a mask was designed to trim the S/D anchors and remove the

stringers. Figure D.1 (b) shows the position of the masking photoresist on the S/D anchors. It

should be noted that the gate line is protected using this mask.

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183

Appendix E

Process Flow for Gate-All-Around Si Nanowire p-MOSFETs with High-κ / Metal Gate Process

E.1 Fabrication Flow

Table E.1 shows the process flow used to fabricate gate-all-around nanowire p-MOSFETs

with High-K/metal gate stack and hydrogen anneal process at MIT Microsystems Technology

Laboratories and MIT Research Laboratories of Electronics.

Step # Process Step Process Details Machine Name 1 Clean SOI wafers with tSi = 100 nm, tBOX = 200 nm RCA/ICL 2 Oxidation Wet oxidation at 800°C, Recipe: 3W800 5C-FiledOx/ICL

3 Oxide Removal Oxide etch in BOE, until the wafer surface

dewets oxEtch-BOE/ICL

4 Elipsometry Measurements of Si thickness, repeat steps 1

to 4 until 20 nm Si remains UV1280/ICL

5 PR Coating Recipe: T1HMDS coater6/ICL

6 Photolithography E-beam alignment-mark (EAM) layer,

reticle: POUYA NWSC-1, recipe: POUYA-EAM Focus: 0.5, exposure time: 145 msec

i-stepper/ICL

7 PR Developing Recipe: PUDDLE2 coater6/ICL

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8 Etch EAM Recipes: POUYA SI ETCH1 15 sec,

BASELINE OX NEW: 70 sec, POUYA SI ETCH1:70 sec deep into Si

AME5000/ICL

9 PR Ashing 2 min Asher-ICL/ICL

10 Resist Spin Bringing resist to the room temperature, drop

by PP pipettes all over the wafer, spin at 3500 rpm for 1 min

PMMA spinner/TRL

11 Prebake at 90°C for 2 minutes Hot-plate/TRL

12 E-beam Exposure

Immediately after spin, using Raith 150™, e-beam energy: 30 keV (with SEM imaging operated at SE mode), field size: 100 μm,

beam diameter: 2 nm, areal dose: 1200 µC/cm2, beam current: ~230-280 pA

Raith150/SEBL

13 Development within 8 hrs (often immediately), in 25%

TMAH for 70 sec, spin/rinse/dry Acidhood2/TRL

14 Post SEBL Clean 3:1 H2SO4: H2O2 for 5 min Acidhood2/TRL 15 PR Ashing 2 min Asher-ICL/ICL 16 PR Coating Recipe: T1HMDS coater6/ICL

17 Photolithography

Mesa layer, reticle: POUYA NWSC 1, recipe: NWSC-STINEW, reticle shift:

(11000, 0.5) Focus: 0.5, exposure time: 145 msec

i-stepper/ICL

18 PR Developing Recipe: PUDDLE2 coater6/ICL

19 Metrology Check if the photo to e-beam alignment is

acceptable, if not go to step 15 SEM/ICL

20 NW Etch

Mesa and NW/pad RIE, Recipes: POUYA OX BT:5 sec resist descum, 3 sec native

oxide breakthrough) + POUYA NW ETCH: 9 sec main, 9 sec soft, 10 sec overetch (OE)

AME5000/ICL

21 PR Ashing 2 minutes ashing Asher-ICL/ICL

22 Elipsometry Measure Si and BOX thicknesses, to verify

Si is completely etched UV1280/ICL

23 PR Coating Recipe: T1HMDS coater6/ICL

24 Photolithography NW local release layer, reticle: NWSC4,

recipe: NWSC4-LR, reticle shift: 11000, 0.5, Focus: 0.5, exposure time: 145 msec

i-stepper/ICL

25 PR Developing Recipe: PUDDLE2 coater6/ICL 26 NW Local Release 45+6 sec etch in BOE (etch rate: 1.5 nm/sec) oxEtch-BOE/ICL

27 Elipsometry Measure SiO2 (BOX) thickness, repeat 26

and 27 until ~75 nm SiO2 is etched UV1280/ICL

28 PR Ashing 2 minutes ashing Asher-ICL/ICL 29 Pre-RCA Clean Piranha + 20 sec 50:1 DI:HF Premetal-Piranha/ICL 30 Pre-Epi RCA SC1: 2 min, HF: 5 s, SC2: 2 min, HF: 15 s RCA/ICL

31 Hydrogen Anneal for 2 min in pure hydrogen at 100 torr and

temperatures of 850°C-875°C Epi-Centura/ICL

32 ALD

Immediate transfer, wafer temp.: 250°C, manifold temp.: 150°C, 7 cycles O3, 55

cycles Al2O3, bring manifold temp. to 115°C, 1200-1400 cycles WN at 340°C

ALD/ICL

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33 PR Coating Recipe: T1HMDS coater6/ICL

34 Photolithography Gate layer, reticle: TFET-2, recipe: NWSC-

FGNEW, Focus: 0.8, exposure time: 140 msec

i-stepper/ICL

35 PR Developing Recipe: PUDDLE2 coater6/ICL

36 Metrology Check if the alignment is acceptable, if not ash PR and then go to step 33 until desired

alignment is achieved SEM/ICL

37 Gate Etch Recipe: WN-ETCH2: 42 sec main etch, very

high selectivity to Al2O3 and HfO2 Rainbow/ICL

38 Elipsometry to verify WN is fully etched UV1280/ICL

39 Ion Implantation Boron implant, no tilt, dose: 2×1015 cm-2,

energy: 5 keV Innovion Corp.

40 PR Ashing 3:30 minutes ashing Asher-ICL/ICL

41 Post-Implant/Pre-ILD

Clean in Nanostrip for 1.5 min Acidhood2/TRL

42 ILD Deposition Inter-Layer-Dielectric (ILD) deposition,

Recipe: LTO SPK 400 53A, 32 min 6C-LTO/ICL

43 Elipsometry tox = 180-190 nm UV1280/ICL 44 PR Coating Recipe: T1HMDS coater6/ICL 45 Backside Oxide Etch For 1.5 min in BOE oxEtch-BOE/ICL 46 PR Ashing 2 min Asher-ICL/ICL

47 S/D Activation at 635-645°C for 15 min then cool down to 580°C (takes about 10 minutes) and then

take the sample out of the tube A3-Sinter/TRL

48 Forming-Gas Anneal 480-500°C, 30 min in forming gas (H2/N2) A3-Sinter/TRL 49 PR Coating Recipe: T1HMDS coater6/ICL

50 Photolithography Contact via layer, reticle: POUYA NWSC-4,

recipe: NWSC4-FVNEW, Focus: 1.2, exposure time: 140 msec

i-stepper/ICL

51 PR Developing Recipe: PUDDLE2 coater6/ICL

52 Oxide RIE Time-controlled partial oxide etch Centura/ICL or AME5000/ICL

53 Elipsometry tox = 20 nm, tAl2O3 = 6 nm UV1280/ICL 54 Oxide Wet Etch 40 sec in 50:1 DI: HF Acidhood2/TRL 55 Elipsometry tox < 1 nm, Al2O3 was fully etched UV1280/ICL 56 PR Ashing 2 minutes ashing Asher-ICL/ICL

57 Native-Oxide

Removal 40 sec in 50:1 DI: HF Acidhood2/TRL

58 Rinse/Dry Rinse and dry SRD/TRL

59 Metal Deposition 1.5 kÅ Ti/ 1 µm Al deposition + two

dummies Endure/ICL

60 PR Coating Recipe: T1HMDS coater6/ICL

61 Photolithography Metal layer, reticle: POUYA NWSC-2,

recipe: NWSC-FM, Focus: 1.3, exposure time: 170 msec

i-stepper/ICL

62 PR Developing Recipe: PUDDLE2 coater6/ICL 63 Metal RIE Metal Etch, recipe: Pouya-metaletch- Rainbow/ICL

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AlTi:115 sec + 5 sec overetch 64 Elipsometry to verify metal is fully etched UV1280/ICL 65 PR Ashing 3:30 minutes ashing Asher-ICL/ICL 66 Forming-Gas Anneal 450°C, 20 min in forming gas (H2/N2) A3-Sinter/TRL 67 Wafer Cleave Die sawing Diesaw/ICL

68 XSEM Cross-sectional FIB cut and imaging Helios 600 FIB/DMSE

Table E.1: process flow to fabricate gate-all-around nanowire p-MOSFETs.

E.2 Polycrystalline-Si/WN Gate Stack

It is worth mentioning that deposition of WN by ALD is a very slow process. It takes around

two hours to reach the deposition temperature set point, i.e. 340°C and the deposition rate is 2.7

cycles per minute. Each cycle corresponds to 0.3-0.4 Å of WN. For example, ~56 nm WN can be

deposited at 1400 ALD cycles for total run time of about 10 hours. A resistivity of ~1.2 kΩ/

was measured for 1400 cycles of ALD WN. An alternate way to save ALD deposition time is to

deposit a thin layer of WN, i.e. 10 nm (with Rs = 6-7 kΩ/), followed by deposition of in-situ

doped poly-Si at 560°C. This is challenging since relatively high temperatures are required to

activate poly-Si. To study the activation of poly-Si, 75 nm of in-situ N+ doped (phosphorous)

amorphous-Si was deposited on top of a thermally-grown oxide (tox = 4 nm) at 560°C. The wafer

was broken into four pieces and the amorphous-Si was annealed at temperatures of 600°C,

650°C, 675°C and 700°C for 15 minutes in a N2 ambient. Figure E.1 (a) shows the optical

photograph of poly-Si/oxide wafer pieces, demonstrating color change from green to magenta as

the temperature is increased from 600°C to 700°C. The plot of sheet resistance as a function

activation temperature, for in-situ N+ doped poly-Si deposited at 560°C is shown in Figure E.1

187

(b). It can be seen that amorphous-Si converts to poly-Si at temperatures between 650°C and

675°C. Therefore, for a gate stack of poly-Si (75 nm) / WN (10 nm), the corresponding sheet

resistance is about 1.3 and 0.58 kΩ/, if poly-Si is activated at 650°C and 675°C, respectively.

Figure E.1: (a) Optical photograph of in-situ N+ doped poly-Si wafer pieces deposited at 560°C and

annealed at temperatures between 600°C and 700°C, demonstrating color change from green to magenta

as the temperature is increased; (b) Plot of sheet resistance as a function annealing temperature, for in-situ

N+ doped poly-Si deposited at 560°C.

188

189

Appendix F Si/Ge Core-Shell Nanowire p-MOSFETs

F.1 Fabrication of Si/Ge Core-Shell Nanowire p-MOSFETs

As discussed in section 2.4.3, growth of Ge on Si nanowires is of great interest to improve

the transport in nanowire p-MOSFETs. The preliminary results for fabrication of Si/Ge Core-

Shell Nanowire p-MOSFETs are presented in this section. Starting material was 150 mm SOI

wafers with 35 nm Si and 400 nm buried oxide. Using hybrid lithography and reactive-ion-

etching, 4 μm long, <110>-oriented Si fins were defined with the final widths in the range of 20

to 70 nm. Each device was designed to have 500 parallel wires (N = 500) to obtain measurable

inversion capacitance, as schematically shown in Figure F.1 (a). The wafer was then cleaned

with a standard pre-epitaxial cleaning recipe with an HF-last step and the SOI thickness was

reduced to 27 nm after wet chemical cleaning. Following a prebake step at 800°C for 3 minutes

in H2 ambient, epitaxial Ge was selectively grown at a temperature of 365°C for 25 sec in an

Applied Materials Epi Centura™ reactor. After 5 minute exposure to ozone, an 8 nm Al2O3/ 35

190

nm WN gate stack was deposited on the wafers using an ALD system. The gate was then

patterned and source/drain regions were boron implanted to a dose of 5×1014 cm-2 and energy of

5 keV. LTO was then deposited as the interlayer dielectric, and S/D regions were activated at a

low temperature of 550°C for 30 minutes to minimize Ge/Si inter-diffusion. The device

fabrication was completed by Ti/Al metallization and a sinter process in forming gas ambient at

425°C for 20 minutes.

Figure F.1: (a) Top-view schematic of Si/Ge nanowire PMOS device with N parallel nanowires and a cutline indicating where the TEM cross-section was obtained; (b) cross-section TEM image of Si-core/Ge-shell NW with Al2O3/WN gate stack.

A cross-sectional Transmission-Electron-Microscopy (TEM) image of the fabricated Si-

core/Ge-shell multi-nanowire p-MOSFET device with Al2O3/WN gate stack is shown in Figure

F.1 (b). The core-Si nanowire is 20 nm wide and 27 nm tall. The thickness of epitaxial Ge on the

(001) Si surface is 10 nm. Epitaxial Ge facets along 111 crystallographic planes are inclined

by 54.7° to the top (001) Ge facet. This hexagonal faceting phenomena is believed to minimize

the surface energy [169] and has been recently reported for SiGe nanowires created by Ge

condensation technique [170] or hydrogen annealed SiGe nanowires fabricated by selective

removal of Si in SiGe/Si superlattices [171]. In Figure F.1 (b), dislocations and defects, mostly

191

propagating from the core-Si corners, are visible from this image, as the Ge exceeds the critical

thickness. Such defects have recently been reported by Smith et al. on the growth of low

germanium content SiGe layers on Si fins with sharp corners [172]. Further optimization of the

shape of the core Si nanowire and the Ge growth conditions is required to reduce the formation

of these defects.

Figure F.2: (a) Transfer characteristics of Si-core/Ge-shell nanowire p-MOSFET for various core Si nanowire widths in the range of 20–50 nm; (b) Output characteristics of Si-core/Ge-shell nanowire p-MOSFET with WSi-NW = 20 nm; (c) Measured inversion capacitance of each wire normalized per wire length as a function of WSi-NW.

F.2 Electrical Characterization and Mobility Calculation

Figure F.2 (a) and (b) show the measured transfer and output characteristics of Si-core/Ge-

shell wrap-gate nanowire p-MOSFETs, for various core-Si nanowire widths (WSi-NW, as defined

in the inset) in the range of 20 to 50 nm. The widths were measured by plan-view SEM prior to

Ge epitaxy and the offset (defined as the Si loss due to the pre-epitaxy cleaning and pre-bake)

192

was calibrated by the cross-section TEM. While the nanowires exhibit poor subthreshold slope

due to the Ge/high-K interface as well as crystalline defects in the Ge epitaxial layer, it is

interesting to see that the drain current saturates as WSi-NW is decreased. In order to confirm if the

nanowire size scales as expected from the nano-lithography, the inversion capacitance was

measured using the split Capacitance-Voltage (CV) method with subtraction of parasitics. Figure

F.2 (c) shows the inversion capacitance of the Si-core/Ge-shell nanowire MOSFETs per wire,

normalized by the length of the wires, as a function of the core-Si nanowire width. Excellent

linear scaling by the core-Si width is observed confirming the uniformity of ALD Al2O3 and the

similarity of the sidewall dimensions for all the wires in the range of study.

Figure F.3: (a) Hole mobility of Si-core/Ge-shell multi-nanowire p-MOSFETs with Al2O3/WN gate stack, as a function of inversion charge density; (b) Hole mobility and enhancement factor over the widest wire with WSi-NW = 70 nm, as a function of core-Si NW width, indicating enhanced hole transport with decreasing wire width.

Figure F.3 (a) shows the extracted low-field effective hole mobility as a function of estimated

inversion charge density (Ninv) for nanowires with Wcore-Si in the range of 20 to 70 nm. The

effective hole mobility of these devices was extracted from the current-voltage characteristics

193

and the inversion capacitance and was corrected for the series resistance (~2.5 kΩ.μm as

measured on test structures). It should be mentioned that the split CV measurements at low

vertical fields were affected by interface states and as a result, the inversion charge density

cannot be accurately calculated by integrating the CV data. Therefore, the maximum inversion

capacitance was used to estimate the inversion charge and the low field effective mobility. Use

of maximum inversion capacitance for mobility extraction results to an overestimation of the

inversion charge density and thus underestimation of the effective mobility, particularly at low

inversion charge densities. The variation of hole mobility as a function of core Si width for two

different inversion charge densities is plotted in Figure F.3 (b). The left vertical axis shows the

absolute value of mobility and the right vertical axis shows the relative mobility ratio compared

to the widest fin with WSi-NW = 70 nm. While wide wires with WSi-NW in the range of 40 to 70 nm

exhibit similar hole mobilities, a monotonic mobility increase, as high as 40%, is observed with

decreasing WSi-NW. Evidence of hole mobility enhancement in GeOI substrates has been recently

reported with decreasing mesa width down to 290 nm in 60 nm-thick GeOI substrates, where the

mobility enhancement was attributed to the increased contribution of 311 and 111 sidewalls

[173]. In our core/shell nanowire system the sidewalls are 111 Ge planes which theoretically

[174] and experimentally [175] should have hole mobility comparable to (001) Ge planes.

However, based on our TEM results on various nanowires, the 111 Ge facets have less surface

roughness compared to the top-surface (001) planes, and increased mobility for narrower NWs

could be due to reduced contribution from surface roughness scattering in the top-surface (001)

Ge. It should be noted that for these devices the epitaxial Ge layer is mostly relaxed as suggested

by the thickness and defect density. It is possible that the observed mobility increase may be

194

associated with a decreased number of dislocations as the lateral dimension of the core-Si is

decreased [169].

Figure F.4: Finite element (a) transverse and (b) longitudinal stress simulations of wide (WSi-NW = 55 nm) and narrow (WSi-NW = 20 nm) Si-core/Ge-shell nanowires based on 1.4 GPa intrinsic stress of the gate stack. Both nanowires show similar longitudinal compressive stress. The wide nanowire shows transverse compression while narrow nanowire shows transverse tension in the top Ge surface.

The stress induced by the WN gate (deposited at 350°C), is also a possible explanation for

the observed mobility increase. To address this, the intrinsic stress of the gate stack was

measured by wafer bow measurements and was input to the Taurus Process™ simulator to

calculate the stress profile in nanowires with two different widths. An intrinsic tensile stress level

of 1.4 GPa was measured for the gate stack. For the ease of simulations, it was assumed that the

Ge is fully relaxed prior to deposition of the gate stack. Figure F.4 shows the stress profile of the

(a) transverse and (b) longitudinal stress components for wide (WSi-NW = 55 nm) and narrow

195

(WSi-NW = 20 nm) Si-core/Ge-shell nanowires. Both structures show similar longitudinal

compressive stress profiles, with slight increase in stress for the narrower structure. It is

interesting to see that the wide nanowire shows transverse compression while the narrow

nanowire shows significant transverse tension near the top Ge surface. Considering the positive

longitudinal and negative transverse piezo-resistance coefficients of germanium [176], the

observed hole mobility increase for narrow wires may be associated with a transformation in the

lateral stress type as well as an increase in the magnitude of the longitudinal stress component.

F.3 Appendix Summary

In summary, Si-core/Ge-shell nanowire p-MOSFETs with Al2O3/WN were demonstrated by

selective epitaxial growth of Ge thin-films on Si-nanowires fabricated by a top-down approach.

Cross-sectional TEM analysis revealed that supercritical-thickness epitaxial Ge-shell facets

along 111 crystallographic planes. Hole mobility increase, as high as 40%, was observed as

the core-Si-nanowire width was decreased from 70 down to 20 nm. Increased population of the

holes in 111 faceted sidewalls with reduced surface roughness compared to the (100) top

plane, as well as stress induced by the gate stack are suggested mechanisms for this width

dependent behavior.

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197

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