Synthesis and Dielectric Studies of Monoclinic Nanosized Zirconia

Zirconium dioxide is a prospective high-κ material that can replace silicon dioxide. Zirconium dioxide nanoparticle has been synthesized using sol-gel process at room temperature. The structural and morphological characterization of the nanoscaled zirconium dioxide is done using FTIR, SEM, X-ray diffraction, and TEM. The particle size of the synthesized ZrO2 is observed in the range of 50–80 nm with an average crystallite size of 2–10 nm. The results are compared with commercial coarse zirconia which showed a particle size in the range of 900 nm–2.13 µm and crystallite size of 5.3 nm–20 nm. It is expected that both nanoscaling and the high dielectric constant of ZrO2 would be useful in replacing the low-κ SiO2 dielectric with high-κ ZrO2 for CMOS fabrication technology. The synthesized ZrO2 is subjected to impedance analysis and it exhibited a dielectric constant of 25 to find its application in short channel devices like multiple gate FinFETS and as a suitable alternative for the conventional gate oxide dielectric SiO2 with dielectric value of 3.9, which cannot survive the challenge of an end of oxide thickness ≤ 1 nm