Characterization of conductive oxides on silicon using non-contact surfacecharge profiling

The density of charge associated with the silicon-oxide structure remains a figure of merit for the process as well as an indicator of the eventual MO S device performance. As the effective oxide thickness drops below 2 nm sig nificant currents limit the effectiveness of oxide charge determination fro m C-V measurements. One potential solution is the SPV-based SCP (Surface Ch arge Profiler) method which allows measurement of total oxide/interfacial c harge without making a contact to the oxide. In this paper the effectivenes s of the SCP in measuring charges in ultra-thin thermal SiO2 and conductive Ta2O5 films is evaluated.