The effects of chemical bonding and band offset constraints at Si-dielectric interfaces on the integration of alternative high-K dielectrics into aggressively-scaled CMOS Si devices

This paper identifies three aspects of the chemical bonding at Si-dielectric interfaces that play crucial roles in the implementation of alternative gate dielectrics for advanced CMOS Si devices: i) the character of the interface bonds, either isovalent with bond and nuclear charge balanced as in Si-SiO2, or heterovalent, with an inherent mismatch between bond and nuclear charge, ii) physical bonding constraints related to the average number of bonds/atom, N-av, and iii) reduced conduction band offset energies that are result because of increased ionic bonding and d-state derived conduction bands in transition metal oxides.