This paper investigates effects of fluorine implantation with post rapid thermal annealing on electrical characteristics and material properties of tantalum pentoxide (Ta2O5) dielectrics. The electrical behaviors of the dielectrics under various implantation doses were measured. To investigate annealing effects, secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS) was used to measure depth profiles of various atoms inside the dielectrics with and without annealing. In addition, atomic force microscopy measurements visualize the surface roughness and material properties of the dielectrics with different implantation doses. The dielectric performance can be significantly improved by an appropriate fluorine implantation dose of 1 x 10(15) ions/cm(2) with post annealing at 800 degrees C. The improvements in electrical characteristics were caused by the appropriate incorporation of the fluorine atoms presented in SIMS profiles and the removal of the dangling bonds and traps. The Ta2O5 dielectric incorporated with appropriate fluorine implantation and annealing treatments shows great promise for future generation of memory applications. (c) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.