ABSTRACT
This chapter investigates the influence of carbon contamination on metal–insulator–metal (MIM) capacitor performance. It develops an understanding of the physical nature of HfO2-based MIM device radiation damage. As HfO2 is the primary choice of semiconductor industry, various methods are used to deposit HfO2: sputtering, e-beam evaporation, atomic layer deposition (ALD), and metal- organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) have been reported for depositing HfO2 on silicon. This chapter investigates the influence of carbon contamination on MIM capacitor performance. In order to quantify the effects of carbon contamination, the interface barrier heights are extracted using the recently proposed model based on electrode polarization mechanism, which is successfully used to fit the experimental results of other MIM capacitors using HfO2 thin films. Microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) are receiving great interest for being used in the space system. However, in space, the electronics are exposed to various forms of radiation including electrons, protons, neutrons, and heavy ions.
