Compositional stability of hafnium aluminates thin films deposited on Si by atomic layer deposition

We have used nuclear reaction analyses and Rutherford backscattering spectrometry to investigate quantitatively the compositional stability of hafnium aluminate thin films deposited on Sis001d by atomic layer deposition using HfCl4/H2O and AlsCH3d3/H2O precursors. It was found that increasing Al/Hf deposition cycles ratio leads to increasing oxygen deficiency in the as-deposited films as well as to increasing metal losses sup to ,15%d from the films after rapid thermal annealing at 1000 °C. Furthermore, isotopic substitution experiments, showed that incorporation of oxygen from the gas phase is eased in the cases where deposition conditions failed to supply enough oxygen to complete oxides stoichiometry