Optical characterization of HfO2 by spectroscopic ellipsometry: Dispersion models and direct data inversion

Hafnium oxide (HfO2) has attracted much interest as high-k material of choice for gate oxide replacement in future CMOS technologies and for its use in optical coating technology. The determination of optical properties, like refractive index and bandgap, is focus of intense research, since the optical constants of HfO2 depend on the physical microstructure and the deposition methods and conditions. In the present study optical characterization of very thin HfO2 films deposited by plasma ion assisted deposition and annealed at different temperatures is carried out. The characterization is performed using ellipsometric measurements in the spectral range from 1.5 to 8 eV and by using the Tauc-Lorentz and Cody-Lorentz dispersion models. In addition, direct inversion of the ellipsometric data is also carried out. The combination of the Cody-Lorentz model with Urbach tail results in the best description of the data and enables to determine meaningful parameters. On the other hand, the direct data inversion is shown to be useful to provide additional information like the presence of subgap absorption peaks and points out features associated to the crystallinity of the material.