Leakage current improvement of Ni/TiNiO/TaN metal-insulator-metal capacitors using optimized N⁺ plasma treatment and oxygen annealing

We have investigated the effects of N+ plasma treatment and oxygen annealing on NiTiNiOTaN capacitors. The postdeposition annealing of TiNiO under oxygen ambient increases the capacitance density but trades off the increased leakage current. This leakage current can be largely decreased by applying an optimized N+ plasma treatment. At high capacitance density of 17.1 fFμ m2, a low leakage current of 7.7× 10-6 A cm2 at 1 V is obtained indicating good potential integrated circuit application.