Abstract
Structural and electrical properties of amorphous tantalum aluminum oxide
(
TaAlO
x
)
films deposited using rf magnetron sputtering are investigated using metal-insulator-metal (MIM) capacitor structures with Au as metal electrodes. Crystallinity of the deposited films was studied using grazing incidence x-ray diffraction analysis. The frequency dependence of temperature coefficient of capacitance, an important parameter for precision MIM capacitors, is studied using the
Au
/
TaAlO
x
/
Au
stacked layer. The effects of annealing temperature and the ambient on the physical and electrical properties of
TaAlO
x
-based high-
k
MIM capacitors are reported. Low nonlinearity in capacitance values was found for samples annealed in
O
2
ambient. Dielectric loss and permittivity are found to increase with increase in temperature.