Changes in the Young Modulus of hafnium oxide thin films

Hafnium-oxide (HfO2)-based materials have been extensively researched due to their excellent optical and electrical properties. However, the literature data on the mechanical properties of these materials and its preparation for heavy machinery application is very limited. The aim of this work is to deposit hafnium oxide thin films by DC reactive magnetron sputtering with different Young’s Modulus from the Ar/O2 concentration variation in the deposition chamber. The thin films were deposited by DC reactive magnetron sputtering with different Ar/O2 gas concentrations in plasma. After deposition, HfOx thin films were characterized through XRD, AFM, RBS and XRF. In this regard, it was observed that the as-deposited HfO2 films were mostly amorphous in the lower Ar/O2 gas ratio and transformed to polycrystalline with monoclinic structure as the Ar/O2 gas ratios grows. RBS technique shows good compromise between the experimental data and the simulated ones. It was possible to tailored the Young Modulus of the films by alter the Ar/O2 content on the deposition chamber without thermal treatment.