Study of interfacial phenomena in thin films using photoelectron spectroscopy

The study of thin films and their interfaces is an important area of research in modern microelectronics. This study looks at four such interfaces using X-Ray photoelectron spectroscopy. The first of these involves high-kappa dielectrics for replacing the silicon dioxide gate dielectric in the conventional CMOS transistor for reduction of gate leakage currents. A maximum entropy based algorithm is used to non-destructively reconstruct compositional depth profiles from angle resolved photoemission data. Considered next is the band alignment of the interface between oxides and titanium nitride, useful for understanding leakage currents in Metal-Insulator-Metal (MIM) capacitors. Another system studied is the oxide/ferromagnet interface in a magnetic tunnel junction (MTJ)---photoemission provides insights here about what affects the performance of devices like magnetic memory (MRAM) for which it can be used. The last system that is investigated involves the study of copper diffusion in silicon dioxide for interconnect applications.