Investigations of the interface stability in HfO2–metal electrodes

As the sharpness of the metal-oxide interface is of major importance to develop efficient structures, we have studied the thermal stability of interfaces in a series of thin film samples where the metallic component was either Pt, Al, Pd, Ni, Nb or Ti deposited on a thin HfO2 film. Thermodynamic considerations have been carried out to determine the possible products of metal-oxide reaction at a temperature of 500 °C. The evolution of the as-deposited thin film structures as a function of annealing temperature has been analysed by combining various techniques and specifically using X-ray reflectometry. This particular technique allows one to detect very thin embedded interfaces, distinguish small density variations and determine accurately the thickness, the normal roughness and the density of each layer. In addition, reflectometry results have been correlated with atomic force microscopy and transmission electron microscopy observations of selected samples. Our results indicate that platinum, palladium and nickel are stable up to 500 °C on hafnium oxide. Annealed aluminium, an interfacial layer forms, whereas niobium and titanium present a diffuse interface.