Characterization of ferroelectric hafnium/zirconium oxide solid solutions deposited by reactive magnetron sputtering

The room temperature deposition of 10 nm-thick ferroelectric hafnium/zirconium oxide, (Hf, Zr)O2, thin solid films is achieved with a single hafnium/zirconium, Hf/Zr, alloy target by reactive magnetron sputtering. After rapid thermal annealing (RTA), crystallization of our samples is analyzed by grazing incidence x-ray diffraction. Changing the pressure inside the chamber during deposition leads to grow amorphous or monoclinic phase (m-phase). The authors demonstrate that if the (Hf, Zr)O2 films are crystallized in the m-phase after deposition, no ferroelectric/orthorhombic phase can be obtained further. On the contrary, when the as-deposited film is amorphous, the ferroelectric/orthorhombic phase appears after the RTA.