Precise Structure of Blade-Coated Metal Oxide Thin Films for Electronic Applications

We recently developed a scalable blade coating approach for metal oxides (MO) such as Al2O3 or In2O3 based on nitride precursors from completely green, pure DI water solutions, without any combustion-promoting toxic additives. For Al2O3 and In2O3 films, we were previously able to link morphological information from grazing incidence wide-angle X-ray scattering (GIWAXS) experiments, chemically sensitive core-electron spectroscopy (XPS), and electrical measurements to a comprehensive picture about the film evolution during this fabrication process. In ongoing research, we are extending this approach to other metal oxide materials hafnium oxide (HfO2), zirconium oxide (ZrO2), gallium oxide (Ga2O3), and cuprous and cupric oxide
(Cu2O and CuO). These are well-known metal oxide materials that can serve as charge-blocking layers (HfO2, ZrO2) or semiconducting materials (Ga2O3, Cu2O, CuO) in electronic devices such as diodes, transistors or non-volatile memory devices.
Obtaining GIWAXS scattering data for the above oxides is an important part of our strategy to obtain as complete as possible structural and chemical data on the MO thin films for the different fabrication conditions.