Korean Journal of Materials Research (한국재료학회지)

Materials Research Society of Korea (한국재료학회)
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Electrical Conduction Mechanism in the Insulating TaNx Film

절연성 TaNx 박막의 전기전도 기구

  • Ryu, Sungyeon (Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Seoul National University of Science and Technology) ;
  • Choi, Byung Joon (Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Seoul National University of Science and Technology)
  • 류성연 (서울과학기술대학교 신소재공학과) ;
  • 최병준 (서울과학기술대학교 신소재공학과)
  • Received : 2016.11.14
  • Accepted : 2016.11.28
  • Published : 2017.01.27
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Abstract

Insulating $TaN_x$ films were grown by plasma enhanced atomic layer deposition using butylimido tris dimethylamido tantalum and $N_2+H_2$ mixed gas as metalorganic source and reactance gas, respectively. Crossbar devices having a $Pt/TaN_x/Pt$ stack were fabricated and their electrical properties were examined. The crossbar devices exhibited temperature-dependent nonlinear I (current) - V (voltage) characteristics in the temperature range of 90-300 K. Various electrical conduction mechanisms were adopted to understand the governing electrical conduction mechanism in the device. Among them, the PooleFrenkel emission model, which uses a bulk-limited conduction mechanism, may successfully fit with the I - V characteristics of the devices with 5- and 18-nm-thick $TaN_x$ films. Values of ~0.4 eV of trap energy and ~20 of dielectric constant were extracted from the fitting. These results can be well explained by the amorphous micro-structure and point defects, such as oxygen substitution ($O_N$) and interstitial nitrogen ($N_i$) in the $TaN_x$ films, which were revealed by transmission electron microscopy and UV-Visible spectroscopy. The nonlinear conduction characteristics of $TaN_x$ film can make this film useful as a selector device for a crossbar array of a resistive switching random access memory or a synaptic device.

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References

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