Initial stages of growth of heteroepitaxial yttria-stabilized zirconia films on silicon substrates

A low temperature process has been developed to grow high quality heteroepi taxial yttria-stabilized zirconia films on Si substrates at 200-800 degrees C. The technique involves reactive sputtering in an electron cyclotron reso nance plasma stream reactor. Successful growth of this heteroepitaxial Rim on Si is important for applications such as high temperature superconductor s on Si, silicon-on-insulator, and high permittivity dielectrics for dynami c random access memory applications. The material prepared in this investig ation was determined to he of high crystalline quality by X-ray diffraction , Rutherford backscattering spectrometry, and transmission electron microsc opy. The presence of an oxygen passivating layer on the Si substrate surfac e was determined to he important fur the heteroepitaxial growth of this mat erial. Once heteroepitaxial growth is established, it can be successfully c ontinued at substrate temperatures as low as 200 degreesC. Material quality was also observe to improve with increasing film thickness due to a self-h ealing process. Furthermore, material quality could he significantly improv ed by a postdeposition high temperature anneal step. (C) 2000 The Electroch emical Society. S0013-4651(00)08-081-2. All rights reserved.