Impact of mechanical stress on gate tunneling currents of germanium and silicon p-type metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistors and metal gate work function

Uniaxial four-point wafer bending stress-altered gate tunneling currents are measured for germanium (Ge)/silicon (Si) channel metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistors (MOSFETs) with HfO2/SiO2 gate dielectrics and TiN/P+ poly Si electrodes. Carrier separation is used to measure electron and hole currents. The strain-altered hole tunneling current from the p-type inversion layer of Ge is measured to be similar to 4 times larger than that for the Si channel MOSFET, since the larger strain-induced valence band-edge splitting in Ge results in more hole repopulation into a subband with a smaller out-of-plane effective mass and a lower tunneling barrier height. The strain-altered electron tunneling current from the metal gate is measured and shown to change due to strain altering the metal work function as quantified by flatband voltage shift measurements of Si MOS capacitors with TaN electrodes. (C) 2008 American Institute of Physics.