Textured growth and electrical characterization of Zinc Sulfide on back-end-of-the-line (BEOL) compatible substrates

Fuente: arXiv
Enregistré dans:
Détails bibliographiques
Auteurs principaux: Wu, Claire, Surendran, Mythili, Priyoti, Anika Tabassum, Anilkumar, Gokul, Wu, Cheng-Hsien, Wang, Chun-Chen, Kuo, Cheng-Chen, Kumarasubramanian, Harish, Lin, Kenta, Butler, Amari, Kapadia, Rehan, Bao, Xinyu, Ravichandran, Jayakanth
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2025
Sujets:
Accès en ligne:
Tags: Ajouter un tag
Pas de tags, Soyez le premier à ajouter un tag!
_version_ 1866918010757840896
author Wu, Claire
Surendran, Mythili
Priyoti, Anika Tabassum
Anilkumar, Gokul
Wu, Cheng-Hsien
Wang, Chun-Chen
Kuo, Cheng-Chen
Kumarasubramanian, Harish
Lin, Kenta
Butler, Amari
Kapadia, Rehan
Bao, Xinyu
Ravichandran, Jayakanth
author_facet Wu, Claire
Surendran, Mythili
Priyoti, Anika Tabassum
Anilkumar, Gokul
Wu, Cheng-Hsien
Wang, Chun-Chen
Kuo, Cheng-Chen
Kumarasubramanian, Harish
Lin, Kenta
Butler, Amari
Kapadia, Rehan
Bao, Xinyu
Ravichandran, Jayakanth
contents Scaling of transistors has enabled continuous improvements in logic device performance, especially through materials engineering. However, surpassing horizontal limitations in chip manufacturing requires a vertical, third dimension. Three-dimensional integration of high-performance logic demands solving the challenge of low-temperature (less than 450°C) synthesis of high-mobility n-type and p-type semiconductor thin films for back-end-of-line (BEOL) compatible transistors. Metal oxides, particularly indium oxides alloyed with gallium and tungsten, are promising n-type channel materials, but suitable p-type materials for BEOL remain scarce. Zinc sulfide (ZnS), a wide band-gap semiconductor, shows room-temperature p-type conductivity when doped with copper and crystallizes below 400°C. Here, we report growth of crystalline ZnS thin films by pulsed laser deposition on amorphous and polycrystalline surfaces including silicon nitride, thermal silicon dioxide, yttrium oxide, hafnium dioxide, sapphire, platinum, and titanium nitride. X-ray diffraction reveals out-of-plane texturing across all surfaces, while grazing incidence wide-angle X-ray scattering probes in-plane crystalline quality. Surface and interface properties are assessed using X-ray reflectivity and atomic force microscopy. Electrical characterization via J-V measurements (ZnS on Pt) and metal-oxide-semiconductor capacitor (ZnS on silicon dioxide) measurements show low leakage current ($10^{-5} A/cm^2$ at 0.40 MV/cm) and bilayer capacitor behavior, suggesting ZnS is highly intrinsic with minimal electrically active defects. Further work on doping ZnS with copper or other p-type elements is needed to realize ZnS as a dopable wide band-gap semiconductor for BEOL integration. This work demonstrates a novel thin-film growth method for sulfide semiconductors under BEOL-compatible conditions.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2504_20028
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Textured growth and electrical characterization of Zinc Sulfide on back-end-of-the-line (BEOL) compatible substrates
Wu, Claire
Surendran, Mythili
Priyoti, Anika Tabassum
Anilkumar, Gokul
Wu, Cheng-Hsien
Wang, Chun-Chen
Kuo, Cheng-Chen
Kumarasubramanian, Harish
Lin, Kenta
Butler, Amari
Kapadia, Rehan
Bao, Xinyu
Ravichandran, Jayakanth
Materials Science
Applied Physics
Scaling of transistors has enabled continuous improvements in logic device performance, especially through materials engineering. However, surpassing horizontal limitations in chip manufacturing requires a vertical, third dimension. Three-dimensional integration of high-performance logic demands solving the challenge of low-temperature (less than 450°C) synthesis of high-mobility n-type and p-type semiconductor thin films for back-end-of-line (BEOL) compatible transistors. Metal oxides, particularly indium oxides alloyed with gallium and tungsten, are promising n-type channel materials, but suitable p-type materials for BEOL remain scarce. Zinc sulfide (ZnS), a wide band-gap semiconductor, shows room-temperature p-type conductivity when doped with copper and crystallizes below 400°C. Here, we report growth of crystalline ZnS thin films by pulsed laser deposition on amorphous and polycrystalline surfaces including silicon nitride, thermal silicon dioxide, yttrium oxide, hafnium dioxide, sapphire, platinum, and titanium nitride. X-ray diffraction reveals out-of-plane texturing across all surfaces, while grazing incidence wide-angle X-ray scattering probes in-plane crystalline quality. Surface and interface properties are assessed using X-ray reflectivity and atomic force microscopy. Electrical characterization via J-V measurements (ZnS on Pt) and metal-oxide-semiconductor capacitor (ZnS on silicon dioxide) measurements show low leakage current ($10^{-5} A/cm^2$ at 0.40 MV/cm) and bilayer capacitor behavior, suggesting ZnS is highly intrinsic with minimal electrically active defects. Further work on doping ZnS with copper or other p-type elements is needed to realize ZnS as a dopable wide band-gap semiconductor for BEOL integration. This work demonstrates a novel thin-film growth method for sulfide semiconductors under BEOL-compatible conditions.
title Textured growth and electrical characterization of Zinc Sulfide on back-end-of-the-line (BEOL) compatible substrates
topic Materials Science
Applied Physics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.20028