The influence of plasma treatment machine oxygen plasma treatment on the performance of MIM structure ZrAlO film capacitor:
In the past ten years, the research of high-k dielectric films in various dielectric application fields has made great progress, and the performance of high-k films is also constantly breaking through. The process research on high-k films has gradually expanded from optimization during deposition to a process with post-deposition processing.

In the post-treatment process of high-k film deposition, in addition to traditional heat treatment methods, processes with low temperature characteristics such as plasma treatment machine plasma treatment are getting more and more attention. The increase in plasma power is one of the factors that reduce the leakage current of the film, and another factor that needs attention is the oxygen flow rate. The key to the post-deposition treatment effect of the film lies in the effective amount of oxygen ion flow. Increasing the oxygen flow rate during plasma treatment can increase the supply of oxygen ions in the film, and the increase in plasma power of the plasma processor helps to increase the ionization efficiency of the oxygen flow and further enhance the effect of plasma treatment.
Under the same oxygen flow, the leakage current after plasma optimization is lower than that after heat treatment, and it is also lower than the untreated film with higher oxygen flow. This result shows that plasma treatment by plasma treatment machine is a good process for optimizing film performance. Under the action of plasma, the ionization effect of oxygen molecules is significantly enhanced, which is more effective in repairing oxygen vacancy defects in the film than a simple heat treatment process.
The plasma atmosphere in the in-situ sputtering also plays a similar role, so that the leakage current of the film that only increases the oxygen flow during deposition without post-deposition treatment is even lower than that of the heat-treated film. The oxygen plasma treatment method significantly improves the electrical performance of the ZrAlO film capacitors. Compared with processes such as increasing the oxygen flow during deposition and post-deposition heat treatment, the plasma treatment of the plasma processor has a higher efficiency in optimizing the performance of the film.
Under certain conditions, the oxygen plasma treatment method can obtain a more ionized oxygen ion current, which can achieve optimized post-deposition processing of the ZrAlO film, and at the same time avoid the aggravation of film defects under high power conditions. The second-order nonlinear voltage characteristic parameter is reduced by more than 60%, and the leakage current is reduced by more than three orders of magnitude, thereby effectively improving the electrical performance of the film capacitor.