Electrical and chemical characterization of high pressure sputtered scandium oxide for memory applications

Scandium oxide was deposited by means of high pressure sputtering in the same conditions on differently prepared (100) Si substrates: chemical oxide, nitrided Si and deposited silicon nitride. Time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectroscopy and X-ray photoemission spectroscopy show that polycrystalline Sc
₂
O
₃
films were grown with a composition which is constant with depth. According to Capacitance-Voltage hysteresis measurements, nitrided Si or deposited SiN
_x
proved to present a lower density of defects in the interface as compared to RCA native oxide.