Effect of annealing on characteristics of a HfO_xN_y-HfO_2-HfO_xN_y sandwich stack compared with HfO_2 film

HfOxNy-HfO2-HfOxNy sandwich-stack (SS) film was investigated in comparison with HfO2 film of the same thickness. Higher thermal stability and better surface morphology can be observed for the SS film. This structure also shows stronger immunity to interfacial oxidation compared with HfO2 film. Meanwhile, unlike the HfOxNy dielectric, the capacitance performance of SS film was not worse (but was even better) than a pure HfO2 film of the same thickness. The SS structure appears to be a promising high-k gate d...