The metal gate high k interaction is one of the dominant processes influencing the electrical performance (Vt, charge accumulation,..) of advanced gate stacks. These interactions are influenced by the entire thermal budget and the presence of reactive elements (on top/ within the material gate) such that relevant measurements can only be performed after a full processing cycle and on a complete gate stack.

In such cases the relevant metal gate high k interface is a buried interface located below the metal gate (+ Si cap) and is not accessible for standard characterization methods like x-ray photoemission spectroscopy (XPS) due the limited escape depth of the photoelectrons. Moreover the presence of a conductive metal gate prevents the application of techniques such as conductive atomic force microscopy (C-AFM), to probe the local distribution of the defects, trapping sites and local degradation upon stressing. XPS in combination with layer removal steps like ion beam sputtering will destroy the bonding information and is thus not applicable. Chemical etching of the metal gate stack prior to the XPS measurements requires an extremely precious control of the etching in order to stop 1-2 nm before the high k metal interface.

As an alternative we have developed a backside removal approach, that allows us to investigate using techniques such as XPS and C-AFM, the metal gate high k interface.

The heterogeneous integration of III-V semiconductors with the Si platform is expected to provide high performance CMOS logic for future technology nodes because of high electron mobility and low electron effective mass in III-V semiconductors. However, there are many technology issues to be addressed for integrating III-V MOSFETs on the Si platform as follow; high-quality MOS interface formation, low resistivity source/drain formation, and high-quality III-V film formation on Si substrates. In this paper, we present several possible solutions for the above critical issues of III-V MOSFETs on the Si platform. In addition, we present the III-V CMOS photonics platform on which III-V MOSFETs and III-V photonics can be monolithically integrated for ultra-large scale electric-optic integrated circuits.

We investigated the electrical properties and transmission line performance of indium antimonide nanowires. The results indicate that the of nanowires suffer from low mobility values on the order of 10-to-15 cm2V-1s-1 because of the contact resistances, scattering due to their small diameters, crystal defects and oxidation occurs during growth and cooling. nanowires show extremely inductive behavior during the AC measurements and due to these parasitic parameters, they can sustain transmission for the signals having frequencies up to 10 MHz. The bandwidth of the nanowires is directly proportional to the diameter of the nanowires. Improving the mobility to higher values and introducing de-embedding and impedance matching to the measurements and analysis could easily carry the bandwidth beyond GHz levels.

In this study, we investigate directly bonded germanium-silicon interfaces to facilitate the development of high quality germanium silicon integration for Avalanche photodiode application. Angle resolved x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy data is presented which provides the chemical composition of the germanium surfaces as a function of the surface passivation. The hetero-structure is characterized by measuring forward and reverse current and comparing the measured results to TCAD simulation. The physical structure of hetero-junction is supported by high resolution transmission electron microscopy.

We investigate the structural, optical and electrical properties of single-layer graphene exposed to oxygen plasma treatment. We find that the pristine semimetallic behavior of graphene disappears upon plasma treatment, in favour of the opening of a bandgap and the featuring of semiconducting properties. The metal-to-semiconductor transition observed appears to be dependent on the plasma treatment time. The semiconducting behavior is also confirmed by photoluminescence measurements. The opening of a bandgap in graphene is explained in terms of graphene surface functionalization with oxygen atoms, bonded as epoxy groups. Ab initio calculations of the density of states show more details about the oxygen–graphene interaction and its effects on the graphene optoelectronic properties, predicting no states near the Fermi level at increasing epoxy group density. The structural changes are also monitored by Raman spectroscopy, showing the progressive evolution of the sp2 character of pristine graphene to sp3, due to the lattice decoration with out-of-plane epoxy groups.