Fabrication of Ultra-Small Zirconia Nano-Islands Using Thermal Atomic Layer Deposition
Abstract
Zirconia (ZrO2) nanostructures have been used in various applications such as protective barriers in optics, interference filters, photo-catalysts, oxygen sensors, in addition to buffer layers or gate oxides in microelectronic devices, etc. All of these applications of ZrO2 are based on the outstanding mechanical, physical, electronic, optical, and chemical properties exhibited by this oxide. ZrO2 can be synthesized and deposited by various methods such as thermal decomposition, sol-gel synthesis, hydrothermal synthesis, and precipitation [1]. It is reported that the synthesis method affects the crystallinity and morphological structure of ZrO2 which would affect the electronic and optical properties of the material such as the bandgap, the light harvesting capability, the lifetime of electron-hole pairs, etc. and therefore affect the performance of the devices where ZrO2 is used [2]. Therefore, a good manipulation of the ZrO2 structure and properties is needed in order to reach the application goals. ZrO2 is well known to have three polymorphs with three different bandgap values [3]: monoclinic (3.25 eV), tetragonal (3.58 eV), and cubic (4.33 eV) [4]. Moreover, the dielectric constant of the cubic and tetragonal polymorphs is reported to be higher than the monoclinic and amorphous ZrO2. In this work, we study the deposition of ZrO2 nanoislands using thermal Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD) and their structural and optical and electronic properties are investigated using transmission electron microscopy (TEM), atomic force microscopy (AFM), UV-Vis-NIR spectrophotometer, and Raman spectroscopy.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Pub Defense Publication
- Publication Date
- Apr 15, 2017
- Source ID
- 10.1149/ma2017-01/44/2036
Entities
People
- Ammar Nayfeh
- Junkyo Suh
- Krishna C. Saraswat
- Nazek El-atab
- Raisul Islam