Improvement of dielectric properties of ZrO2 films prepared by limited reaction sputtering

We investigated the growth of crystalline ZrO
2
film prepared on p-Si(100) by limited reaction sputtering system under different growth temperatures from 400 to 700°C. The structural characteristics of the samples were studied by XRD, RHEED and AFM, which provided a solid identification of the phase transformation from monoclinic phase to tetragonal phase. The dielectric properties were studied by C-V and I-V measurements on Au/ZrO
2
/p-Si(100) MIS structures, suggesting that the tetragonal ZrO
2
thin film shows excellent dielectric performances including a high permittivity up to 32 as well as a negligible flatband voltage shift in C-V curves.