Composition and Microstructure of Zirconia Films Obtained by MOCVD with a New, Liquid, Mixed Acetylacetonato-Alcoholato Precursor

✍ Scribed by Marcus Morstein; Imre Pozsgai; Nicholas D. Spencer

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1999
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 639 KB
• Volume: 5
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0948-1907
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1521-3862(199908)5:4<151::aid-cvde151>3.0.co;2-9

✦ Synopsis

The new mixed alcoholato-acetylacetonato precursor Zr(acac) 2 (hfip) 2 , where hfip = OCH(CF 3 ) 2 , has been used to deposit zirconia at temperatures between 350 and 700 C. This compound, a liquid at room temperature, combines a high vapor pressure with a relatively low hydrolysis sensitivity. At 0.5 mbar total pressure, high growth rates of up to 200 nm min ±1 were reached in our cold-wall reactor, the apparent activation energy in the kinetic regime being 81.5 kJ mol ±1 . Zirconia films with C and F levels between 0.25 and 0.50 at.-% were obtained in a temperature window of 475 C to 625 C. The impact of deposition temperature on the microstructure has been followed by both field-emission scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD). With increasing deposition temperature, the initially cubic zirconia films convert progressively into the monoclinic equilibrium phase, probably due to a crystallite size effect.