A study on thermal stability improvement in Ni germanide/p-Ge using Co interlayer for Ge MOSFETs

Nickel germanide (NiGe) is one of the most promising alloy materials for source/drain (S/D) of Ge MOSFETs. However, NiGe has limited thermal stability up to 450°C which is a challenge for fabrication of Ge MOSFETs. In this paper, a novel method is proposed to improve the thermal stability of NiGe using Co interlayer. As a result, we found that the thermal stability of NiGe was improved from 450°C to 570°C by using the proposed Co interlayer. Furthermore, we found that current-voltage (I-V) characteristic was improved a little by using Co/Ni/TiN structure after post-annealing. Therefore, NiGe formed by the proposed Co interlayer that is, Co/Ni/TiN structure, is a promising technology for S/D contact of Ge MOSFETs.