Etching of zirconium oxide, hafnium oxide, and hafnium silicates in dilute hydrofluoric acid solutions

Viral Lowalekar, Srini Raghavan

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

38 Scopus citations

Abstract

Oxides and silicates of zirconium and hafnium are actively being considered and tested to replace SiO2 as the gate material have the high-dielectric constant (k ∼ 20-25) needed to provide a larger equivalent oxide thickness, they are very refractory and difficult to etch by wet and dry methods. In this paper, work done on wet etching of ZrO2, HfO2, and HfSixOy in dilute hydrofluoric acid (HF) solutions is presented and discussed. Experiments were done one various high-k films deposited by metalorganic chemical vapor deposition. It was found that the as-deposited high-k films can be dissolved with a good selectivity over SiO2 in dilute HF solutions, but heat-treated high-k films are difficult to etch with good selectivity over SiO2 under the same conditions.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)1149-1156
Number of pages8
JournalJournal of Materials Research
Volume19
Issue number4
DOIs
StatePublished - Apr 2004
Externally publishedYes

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General Materials Science
  • Condensed Matter Physics
  • Mechanics of Materials
  • Mechanical Engineering

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