LO. Prieto-López, F. Yubero, R. Machorro, W. de la Cruz
Microelectronics Journal, 39 (2008) 1371–1373
doi: 10.1016/j.mejo.2008.01.048

Optical properties of Zr and ZrO₂ films in the energy range from 1.5 to 100 eV were obtained by quantitative analysis of reflection electron energy loss spectroscopy (REELS) and ellipsometry. The films were prepared on (1 1 1) silicon substrates by reactive laser ablation using a zirconium target. For the growth of ZrO₂ films a pressure of 5 mTorr of oxygen in the growth chamber was used. The substrate temperature during deposition was . The deposits were studied ex situ by X-ray diffraction (XRD) andin situ by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and REELS. The ZrO₂ films were found to be polycrystalline with monoclinic structure. The XPS results showed that the oxygen pressure used is the optimal control to produce ZrO₂ films by laser ablation. A gap of 5 eV for the ZrO₂ film was measured by REELS.