Evolution of the quadrupole hyperfine interaction while milling a Si-HfO2? blend Original Research Article

C.Y. CHAIN; S. FERRARI; L. C. DAMONTE; J.A. MARTINEZ; A.F. PASQUEVICH

JOURNAL OF ALLOYS AND COMPOUNDS

ELSEVIER SCIENCE SA

Lugar: Amsterdam; Año: 2012 vol. 536 p. 50 - 54

0925-8388

As HfO2 appears as a good candidate to replace SiO2 in Si complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor devices, a refined knowledge of the possible solid state reactions between Si and HfO2 is valuable. Being the Perturbed Angular Correlation technique a very sensitive method to detect small changes in solid state, the goal of this work is to follow the different stages that occur while ball milling a blend Si-HfO2 by inspecting the hyperfine quadrupole interaction at Hf sites. The characterization is complemented by X-ray diffraction analysis. For comparison, a similar study on pure m-HfO2 is carried out. The results seem to reveal a gradual incorporation of Si in a tetragonal defective phase of hafnia with milling time. In addition, the formation of precursor arrays of the HfSiO4 structure takes place. After an annealing at 1000ºC important amount of crystalline hafnon appear