Material characteristics of electrically tunable zirconium oxide thin films

Material Characteristics of zirconium oxide thin films obtained by plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition on p-type Si(100) substrates were investigated to explain their unable electrical properties. The films obtained without heating had polycrystalline nanograins that are mostly of a tetragonal phase under oxygen-deficient plasma conditions but transformed into a monoclinic phase with increasing $O_2$ addition in the plasma. Mostly amorphous bulk $ZrO_2$ with a relatively thicker and smoother interfacial layer was obtained from oxygen-rich plasmas, resulting in a decrease in both the overall dielectric constant and the leakage current density. the interfacial layer formed between the bulk $ZrO_2$ and Si substrate was analyzed to be zirconium silicate, which approached $SiO_2$ as its zirconium content decreased with the increasing gas phase $O_2$ content.