Search Results

Now showing 1 - 5 of 5
  • Item
    Geometric conductive filament confinement by nanotips for resistive switching of HfO2-RRAM devices with high performance
    (London : Nature Publishing Group, 2016) Niu, Gang; Calka, Pauline; Auf der Maur, Matthias; Santoni, Francesco; Guha, Subhajit; Fraschke, Mirko; Hamoumou, Philippe; Gautier, Brice; Perez, Eduardo; Walczyk, Christian; Wenger, Christian; Di Carlo, Aldo; Alff, Lambert; Schroeder, Thomas
    Filament-type HfO2-based RRAM has been considered as one of the most promising candidates for future non-volatile memories. Further improvement of the stability, particularly at the “OFF” state, of such devices is mainly hindered by resistance variation induced by the uncontrolled oxygen vacancies distribution and filament growth in HfO2 films. We report highly stable endurance of TiN/Ti/HfO2/Si-tip RRAM devices using a CMOS compatible nanotip method. Simulations indicate that the nanotip bottom electrode provides a local confinement for the electrical field and ionic current density; thus a nano-confinement for the oxygen vacancy distribution and nano-filament location is created by this approach. Conductive atomic force microscopy measurements confirm that the filaments form only on the nanotip region. Resistance switching by using pulses shows highly stable endurance for both ON and OFF modes, thanks to the geometric confinement of the conductive path and filament only above the nanotip. This nano-engineering approach opens a new pathway to realize forming-free RRAM devices with improved stability and reliability.
  • Item
    Graphene growth on Ge(100)/Si(100) substrates by CVD method
    (London : Nature Publishing Group, 2016) Pasternak, Iwona; Wesolowski, Marek; Jozwik, Iwona; Lukosius, Mindaugas; Lupina, Grzegorz; Dabrowski, Pawel; Baranowski, Jacek M.; Strupinski, Wlodek
    The successful integration of graphene into microelectronic devices is strongly dependent on the availability of direct deposition processes, which can provide uniform, large area and high quality graphene on nonmetallic substrates. As of today the dominant technology is based on Si and obtaining graphene with Si is treated as the most advantageous solution. However, the formation of carbide during the growth process makes manufacturing graphene on Si wafers extremely challenging. To overcome these difficulties and reach the set goals, we proposed growth of high quality graphene layers by the CVD method on Ge(100)/Si(100) wafers. In addition, a stochastic model was applied in order to describe the graphene growth process on the Ge(100)/Si(100) substrate and to determine the direction of further processes. As a result, high quality graphene was grown, which was proved by Raman spectroscopy results, showing uniform monolayer films with FWHM of the 2D band of 32 cm−1.
  • Item
    Dislocation-free Ge nano-crystals via pattern independent selective Ge heteroepitaxy on Si nano-tip wafers
    (London : Nature Publishing Group, 2016) Niu, Gang; Capellini, Giovanni; Schubert, Markus Andreas; Niermann, Tore; Zaumseil, Peter; Katzer, Jens; Krause, Hans-Michael; Skibitzki, Oliver; Lehmann, Michael; Xie, Ya-Hong; von Känel, Hans; Schroeder, Thomas
    The integration of dislocation-free Ge nano-islands was realized via selective molecular beam epitaxy on Si nano-tip patterned substrates. The Si-tip wafers feature a rectangular array of nanometer sized Si tips with (001) facet exposed among a SiO2 matrix. These wafers were fabricated by complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) compatible nanotechnology. Calculations based on nucleation theory predict that the selective growth occurs close to thermodynamic equilibrium, where condensation of Ge adatoms on SiO2 is disfavored due to the extremely short re-evaporation time and diffusion length. The growth selectivity is ensured by the desorption-limited growth regime leading to the observed pattern independence, i.e. the absence of loading effect commonly encountered in chemical vapor deposition. The growth condition of high temperature and low deposition rate is responsible for the observed high crystalline quality of the Ge islands which is also associated with negligible Si-Ge intermixing owing to geometric hindrance by the Si nano-tip approach. Single island as well as area-averaged characterization methods demonstrate that Ge islands are dislocation-free and heteroepitaxial strain is fully relaxed. Such well-ordered high quality Ge islands present a step towards the achievement of materials suitable for optical applications.
  • Item
    Material insights of HfO2-based integrated 1-transistor-1-resistor resistive random access memory devices processed by batch atomic layer deposition
    (London : Nature Publishing Group, 2016) Niu, Gang; Kim, Hee-Dong; Roelofs, Robin; Perez, Eduardo; Schubert, Markus Andreas; Zaumseil, Peter; Costina, Ioan; Wenger, Christian
    With the continuous scaling of resistive random access memory (RRAM) devices, in-depth understanding of the physical mechanism and the material issues, particularly by directly studying integrated cells, become more and more important to further improve the device performances. In this work, HfO2-based integrated 1-transistor-1-resistor (1T1R) RRAM devices were processed in a standard 0.25 μm complementary-metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) process line, using a batch atomic layer deposition (ALD) tool, which is particularly designed for mass production. We demonstrate a systematic study on TiN/Ti/HfO2/TiN/Si RRAM devices to correlate key material factors (nano-crystallites and carbon impurities) with the filament type resistive switching (RS) behaviours. The augmentation of the nano-crystallites density in the film increases the forming voltage of devices and its variation. Carbon residues in HfO2 films turn out to be an even more significant factor strongly impacting the RS behaviour. A relatively higher deposition temperature of 300 °C dramatically reduces the residual carbon concentration, thus leading to enhanced RS performances of devices, including lower power consumption, better endurance and higher reliability. Such thorough understanding on physical mechanism of RS and the correlation between material and device performances will facilitate the realization of high density and reliable embedded RRAM devices with low power consumption.
  • Item
    Perfluorodecyltrichlorosilane-based seed-layer for improved chemical vapour deposition of ultrathin hafnium dioxide films on graphene
    (London : Nature Publishing Group, 2016) Kitzmann, Julia; Göritz, Alexander; Fraschke, Mirko; Lukosius, Mindaugas; Wenger, Christian; Wolff, Andre; Lupina, Grzegorz
    We investigate the use of perfluorodecyltrichlorosilane-based self-assembled monolayer as seeding layer for chemical vapour deposition of HfO2 on large area CVD graphene. The deposition and evolution of the FDTS-based seed layer is investigated by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, Auger electron spectroscopy, and transmission electron microscopy. Crystalline quality of graphene transferred from Cu is monitored during formation of the seed layer as well as the HfO2 growth using Raman spectroscopy. We demonstrate that FDTS-based seed layer significantly improves nucleation of HfO2 layers so that graphene can be coated in a conformal way with HfO2 layers as thin as 10 nm. Proof-of-concept experiments on 200 mm wafers presented here validate applicability of the proposed approach to wafer scale graphene device fabrication.