Abstract
CeO$_2$ thin films have used in wide applications such as SOI, buffer layer, antirflection coating, and gate dielectric layer. CeO$_2$takes one of the cubic system of fluorite structure and shows similar lattice constant (a=0.541nm) to silicon (a=0.543nm). We investigated CeO$_2$films as buffer layer material for nonvolatile memory device application of a single transistor. Aiming at the single transistor FRAM device with a gate region configuration of PZT/CeO$_2$ /P-Si , this paper focused on CeO$_2$-Si interface properties. CeO$_2$ films were grown on P-type Si(100) substrates by 13.56MHz RF magnetron sputtering system using a 2 inch Ce metal target. To characterize the CeO$_2$ films, we employed an XRD, AFM, C-V, and I-V for structural, surface morphological, and electrical property investigations, respectively. This paper demonstrates the best lattice mismatch as low as 0.2 % and average surface roughness down to 6.8 $\AA$. MIS structure of CeO$_2$ shows that breakdown electric field of 1.2 MV/cm, dielectric constant around 13.6 at growth temperature of 200 $^{\circ}C$, and interface state densities as low as 1.84$\times$10$^{11}$ cm $^{-1}$ eV$^{-1}$ . We probes the material properties of CeO$_2$ films for a buffer layer of FRAM applications.
