A study of rapid photothermal annealing on the electrical properties and reliability of tantalum pentoxide

Rapid photothermal annealing is based on the use of vacuum ultraviolet (VUV) photons as the source of optical energy and tungsten halogen lamps as the source of optical and thermal energy. Tantalum pentoxide (Ta/sub 2/O/sub 5/) thin films deposited by thermal metalorganic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) have been annealed by RPP and conventional rapid thermal annealing (RTP). As compared to samples annealed by RTP, lower leakage current and lower trap densities were observed in the samples annealed by RPP.