Dielectric Properties

of Ceramics
EBB 443

Dr. Sabar D. Hutagalung
School of Materials & Mineral Resources
Engineering, Universiti Sains Malaysia
Introduction
Dielectric materials: high electrical resistivities, but an
efficient supporter of electrostatic fields.
Can store energy/charge.
Able to support an electrostatic field while dissipating
minimal energy in the form of heat.
The lower the dielectric loss (proportion of energy lost
as heat), the more effective is a dielectric material.
Another consideration is the dielectric constant, the
extent to which a substance concentrates the
electrostatic lines of flux.
Dielectric Constant
The capacitance, C, of a capacitor formed by two parallel plates
of area A spaced d apart with the area between the plates filled
with dielectric material with a relative dielectric constant of is:

Dielectric Loss
For a lossy (imperfect) dielectric the dielectric
constant can be represented by a complex
relative dielectric constant:


The imaginary part of this complex dielectric
constant, at a frequency, is equivalent to a
frequency-dependent conductivity, (), given
by:
" is also known as the loss factor.
The small difference in phase from ideal behaviour is
defined by an angle , defined through the equation



tan is known as the loss tangent or dissipation factor.
A quality factor, Q, for the dielectric is given by the
reciprocal of tan .
Dielectric Loss
Equivalent circuit diagrams: (a) capacitive cell, (b)
charging and loss current, (c) loss tangent for a typical
dielectric
Dielectric Loss
From Q = c c
o
AV/d = CV

If V being sinusoidal, total charge Q may be written as


Current flow on discharge of the capacitive cell in time, t:


For a real dielectric the current I has vector components I
C
and I
R
:
I = I
C
+ I
R

t i
o
e V C Q
e
=
CV i
dt
dQ
I e = =
Dielectric Loss
From magnitude of these currents, also we can define a
dissipation factor, tan o, as



Quality factor Q is:



C
R
I
I
= o tan
cycle per dissipated energy
stored energy average
Q = =
o tan
1
Dielectric Loss
Alternating Current Theory
Impedance of a resistance = R
Impedance of a capacitance = 1/iC
Mean power, P, dissipated over a cycle in a lossy
capacitor with plates of area A separated by a distance
d:

Dielectric Strength
Dielectric materials are insulators (conduction cannot
generally occur).
However, under certain conditions, dielectric materials
can break down and conduct a significant current.
Generally, the lattice of a dielectric has sufficient
strength to absorb the energy from impacting electrons
that are accelerated by the applied electric field.
However, under a sufficiently large electric field, some
electrons present in the dielectric will have sufficient
kinetic energy to ionize the lattice atoms causing an
avalanching effect.
As a result, the dielectric will begin to conduct a
significant amount of current.

Dielectric Strength
This phenomenon is called dielectric breakdown and the
corresponding field intensity is referred to as the
dielectric breakdown strength.
Dielectric strength may be defined as the maximum
potential gradient to which a material can be subjected
without insulating breakdown, that is



where DS is the dielectric strength in kV/mm,
V
B
the breakdown voltage, and d the thickness.
d
V
dx
dV
DS
B
=
|
.
|

\
|
=
max
Current-voltage characteristic up to breakdown for
a typical dielectric materials
Dielectric Strength
Dielectric strength depends on
material homogeneity,
specimen geometry,
electrode shape and disposition,
stress mode (ac, dc or pulsed) and
ambient condition.

Capacitors
Tantalum capacitor
Capacitors
The basic formula for the capacitance of a parallel-plate
capacitor is:


To increase C, one either increases c, increases A, or
decreases d.
Early capacitors consisted of metal foils separated by
wax (c ~ 2.5), mica (c ~ 3 - 6), steatite (c ~ 5.5 - 7.5), or
glass (c ~ 5 - 10).
The use of titania provided a significant increase (c ~
170), was followed by perovskite-based, such as BaTiO
3

(c ~ 1000).
Capacitors
C = "capacitance"
= q /AV

Units: Coulomb/Volt
= Farad (F)
-----------------------------
The capacitance of a
capacitor is constant;
if q increases, AV
increases proportionately.

Michael Faraday
(1791-1867)
Capacitors
Capacitors
DRAM chips currently utilize capacitors with Si
3
N
4
or SiO
2

as dielectric materials.
The electrodes are made of doped Si or poly-Si.
Capacitors can be fabricated onto IC chips.
They are commonly used in conjunction with transistors in
DRAM.
The capacitors help maintain the contents of memory.
Because of their tiny physical size, these components have
low capacitance.
They must be recharged thousands of times per second or
the DRAM will lose its data.
Q = CV
Q: charge (Coulomb)
C: capacitance (Farad)
V: potential difference (Volt)
d: separation/thickness (meter)
c
o
: permitivity of vacuum =
8.854x10
-12
C
2
/m
2
or F/m
c
r
: dielectric constant

d
A
C
o r
c c =
d
AV
Q
o r
c c =
Multilayer Ceramic Capacitor
The multilayer ceramic capacitor (MLCC):




where N is the number of stacked plates.
Ideally, the dielectric should have a low electrical
conductivity so that the leakage current is not too large.
d
N A
C
o r
) 1 (
= c c
Multilayer Ceramic Capacitor
Cut-away view of multilayer
ceramic capacitor.
Ceramic surface-mount
capacitors.
High-K Dielectric
The bit count of MOS DRAM devices is
continuously increasing. However, as bit count
goes up, capacitor cell area goes down.
The capacitance per cell must remain in the 25-
30 fF range, which means the capacitance
density must increase.
One approach for DRAM manufacturing is to
replace the traditional silicon nitride + silicon
oxide with a higher dielectric constant (k) such
as tantalum pentoxide (Ta
2
O
5
), Hf-oxide (HfO
2
)
and Zr-oxide (ZrO
2
).
The roadmap of capacitor with DRAM technology.
D.-S. Yoon et al. / Progress in Materials Science 48 (2003) 275371
High-K Dielectric
High-k dielectric films are anticipated to be
required for certain applications with low power
and leakage current specifications.
High-k materials should be compatible with
conventional industry standard MOSFET
process flows using a poly-Si gate electrode.
HfO
2
, ZrO
2
, and Ta
2
O
5
as high-k gate-
dielectrics.
HfO
2
/Poly-Si high-k transistor


ZrO
2
/Poly-Si high-k transistors
Typical material stack used in aTa
2
O
5

DRAM capacitor
A Review of High High-k Dielectrics
Gate dielectric materials having high dielectric
constant, large band gap with a favorable band
alignment, low interface state density and good
thermal stability are needed for future gate
dielectric applications.
Ultra high-k materials such as STO (SrTiO3) or
BST (BaSrTiO3) may cause fringing field
induced barrier lowering effect.
High-k gate dielectrics have a number of
difficulties:
(1) crystallization upon heating,
(2) dopant penetration,
(3) fixed charge,
(4) low channel mobility and
(5) uncontrolled oxide formation at the Si/high-k
interface.
A Review of High High-k Dielectrics
High-K Problems
High-K and PolySi are Incompatible
Phonon Scattering in High-K
The Gate Stack
Schematic illustration of
important regions in a CMOS
FET gate stack
Expected performance trends for complementary
metal oxidesemiconductor (CMOS) transistor
technologies. The unrelenting reduction in transistor
size and the associated decrease in gate delay for (a)
an NMOS transistor and (b) a PMOS FET are
evident.
Schematic image of MOS transistors in the year 2003 and 2013.
EOT- equivalent oxide
thickness
Physical and electrical thickness of high-k gate dielectric (ideal).
SiO
2
equivalent thickness EOT is smaller than high-k physical
thickness.
The depletion region of thickness W
d
forms adjacent to the
poly-Si/oxide interface.
For example, if the capacitor dielectric is
SiO
2
, t
eq
= 3.90c
o
(A/C), c
o
= 8.85x10
-3
fF/m, thus a capacitance density of
C/A=34.5 fF/m
2
corresponds to t
eq
=10 .
A dielectric with a relative permittivity of 16
results in a physical thickness of ~40 , to
obtain t
eq
=10 .
Comparison of (a) stacked and (b) single-layer gate dielectrics in a
hypothetical transistor gate stack.
Either structure results in the same overall gate stack capacitance or
equivalent oxide thickness, t
eq
=10 .