Electrical characteristics of SrTiO3/Al2O3 laminated film capacitors

Abstract

The electrical characteristics of SrTiO3/Al2O3 (160 nm up/90 nm down) laminated film capacitors using the sol-gel process have been investigated. SrTiO3 is a promising and extensively studied high-K dielectric material, but its leakage current property is poor. SrTiO3/Al2O3 laminated films can effectively suppress the demerits of pure SrTiO3 films under low electric field, but the leakage current value reaches to 0.1 A/cm2 at higher electric field (>160 MV/m). In this study, a new approach was applied to reduce the leakage current and improve the dielectric strength of SrTiO3/Al2O3 laminated films. Compared to laminated films with Au top electrodes, dielectric strength of laminated films with Al top electrodes improves from 205 MV/m to 322 MV/m, simultaneously the leakage current maintains the same order of magnitude (10−4 A/cm2) until the breakdown occurs. The above electrical characteristics are attributed to the anodic oxidation reaction in origin, which can repair the defects of laminated films at higher electric field. The anodic oxidation reactions have been confirmed by the corresponding XPS measurement and the cross sectional HRTEM analysis. This work provides a new approach to fabricate dielectrics with high dielectric strength and low leakage current.