On Oxygen Deficiency and Fast Transient Charge-Trapping Effects in High-$k$ Dielectrics

This letter correlates fast transient charging (FTC) in high-k gate dielectrics to variations in its oxygen content. Analysis of electrical and physical data suggests that the observed enhancement of FTC may be caused by reduction of the oxygen content in the high-k film due to O scavenging process induced by the HfSi_x metal electrode. A hypothesis correlating O scavenging from the high-k dielectric to O vacancy formation, which contributes to FTC, is proposed