Negative Capacitance Ge PFETs for Performance Improvement: Impact of Thickness of HfZrOx

We report a comparative investigation of the negative capacitance (NC) Ge pFETs with different thicknesses of HfZrO
_x
(HZO). Although the NC transistors with 6.6 nm HZO exhibit the sub-60 mV/decade subthreshold swing, the hysteresis inevitably occurs. The hysteresisfree characteristics are demonstrated in the NC Ge pFETs with 4.5 and 3.7 nm HZO. The influence of postannealing temperature on device performance is dependent on the thickness of HZO. With the postannealing at 450 °C, NC transistors with 4.5 and 3.7 nm HZO achieve 23% and 11% IDS improvement, respectively, over the control devices, at a V
_GS
-V
_TH
of -1.0 V and a V
_DS
of -0.05 V. However, a higher postannealing temperature of 550 °C leads to the significant degradation in NC device with 4.5 nm HZO compared with the control device. It is further observed that, with the fixed HZO thickness and postannealing temperature, I
_DS
of the NC Ge pFETs is improved as the C
_G
peak gets increased.