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Lanthanum oxide nanostructured films synthesized using hot dense and extremely non-equilibrium plasma for nanoelectronic device applications

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Abstract

Lanthanum oxide (La2O3) nanostructured films are synthesized on a p-type silicon wafer by ablation of La2O3 pellet due to interaction with hot dense argon plasmas in a modified dense plasma focus (DPF) device. The nanostructured films are investigated using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), atomic force microscopy (AFM), and X-ray diffraction (XRD) spectra. SEM study shows the formation of nano-films having nano-size structures with the average nanostructures size ~25, ~53, and ~45 nm for one, two, and three DPF shots, respectively. The nanostructures sizes and morphology of nano-films are consistent between the AFM and SEM analyses. XRD spectra confirms nano-sized La2O3 with an average grain size ~34, ~51, and ~42 nm for one, two, and three DPF shots, respectively. The electrical properties such as current–voltage and capacitance–voltage (C–V) characteristics of the Al–La2O3–Si metal–oxide–semiconductor (MOS) capacitor structure are measured. The current conduction mechanism of the MOS capacitors is also demonstrated. The C–V characteristics are further used to obtain the electrical parameters such as the dielectric constant, oxide thickness, flat-band capacitance, and flat-band voltage of the MOS capacitors. These measurements demonstrate significantly lower leakage currents without any commonly used annealing or doping, thereby revealing a significant improvement of the MOS nanoelectronic device performance due to the incorporation of the DPF-produced La2O3 nano-films.

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Acknowledgements

One of the authors (OM) is thankful to the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), New Delhi, India for financial assistance in term of award of Senior Research Fellowship (NET). The authors would like to thank Prof. M. P. Srivastava, Physics Department, Delhi University for experimental support to deposit La2O3 gate dielectric using dense plasma focus device. The authors would also like to thank Prof. V. R. Rao, Electrical Engineering Department, Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, for useful comments, suggestion, and experimental support to do electrical characterization under the INUP Project. This work was also partially supported by the Australian Research Council and CSIRO’s OCE Science Leadership Scheme.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics and Astrophysics, University of Delhi, Delhi, 110 007, India

    O. Mangla & Y. Malhotra

  2. Electronics and Communication Engineering, Indian Institute for Information Technology, Design and Manufacturing, Jabalpur, India

    A. Srivastava

  3. Plasma Nanoscience Centre Australia (PNCA), CSIRO Materials Science and Engineering, P. O. Box 218, Lindfield, NSW, 2070, Australia

    K. Ostrikov

  4. Plasma Nanoscience @ Complex Systems, School of Physics, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, 2006, Australia

    K. Ostrikov

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  1. O. Mangla
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Correspondence to A. Srivastava.

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Mangla, O., Srivastava, A., Malhotra, Y. et al. Lanthanum oxide nanostructured films synthesized using hot dense and extremely non-equilibrium plasma for nanoelectronic device applications. J Mater Sci 49, 1594–1605 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10853-013-7842-3

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