Properties of Epitaxial SrTiO₃ Thin Films Grown on Silicon by Molecular Beam Epitaxy

Abstract

Single crystalline perovskite oxides such as SrTiO₃ (STO) are highly desirable for future generation ULSI applications. Over the past three decades, development of crystalline oxides on silicon has been a great technological challenge as an amorphous silicon oxide layer forms readily on the Si surface when exposed to oxygen preventing the intended oxide heteroepitaxy on Si substrate. Recently, we have successfully grown epitaxial STO thin films on Si(001) surface by using molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) method. Properties of the STO films on Si have been characterized using a variety of techniques including in-situ reflection high energy electron diffraction (RHEED), ex-situ X-ray diffraction (XRD), spectroscopic ellipsometry (SE), Auger electron spectroscopy (AES) and atomic force microscopy (AFM). The STO films grown on Si(001) substrate show bright and streaky RHEED patterns indicating coherent two-dimensional epitaxial oxide film growth with its unit cell rotated 450 with respect to the underlying Si unit cell. RHEED and XRD data confirm the single crystalline nature and (001) orientation of the STO films. An X-ray pole figure indicates the in-plane orientation relationship as STO[100]//Si[110] and STO(001)// Si(001). The STO surface is atomically smooth with AFM rms roughness of 1.2 AÅ. The leakage current density is measured to be in the low 10⁻⁹ A/cm² range at 1 V, after a brief post-growth anneal in O₂. An interface state density D_it = 4.6 × 10¹¹ eV⁻¹ cm⁻² is inferred from the high-frequency and quasi-static C-V characteristics. The effective oxide thickness for a 200 Å STO film is around 30 Å and is not sensitive to post-growth anneal in O₂ at 500-700°C. These STO films are also robust against forming gas anneal. Finally, STO MOSFET structures have been fabricated and tested. An extrinsic carrier mobility value of 66 cm² V⁻¹1 s⁻¹ is obtained for an STO PMOS device with a 2 μm effective gate length.