Interactions of hydrogen with amorphous hafnium oxide

M Kaviani and VV Afanas'ev and AL Shluger, PHYSICAL REVIEW B, 95, 075117 (2017).

DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevB.95.075117

We used density functional theory (DFT) calculations to study the interaction of hydrogen with amorphous hafnia (a-HfO2) using a hybrid exchange-correlation functional. Injection of atomic hydrogen, its diffusion towards electrodes, and ionization can be seen as key processes underlying charge instability of high-permittivity amorphous hafnia layers in many applications. Hydrogen in many wide band gap crystalline oxides exhibits negative-U behavior (+1 and -1 charged states are thermodynamically more stable than the neutral state). Our results show that in a-HfO2 hydrogen is also negative-U, with charged states being the most thermodynamically stable at all Fermi level positions. However, metastable atomic hydrogen can share an electron with intrinsic electron trapping precursor sites Phys. Rev. B 94, 020103 (2016). forming a e(tr)(-) + O-H center, which is lower in energy on average by about 0.2 eV. These electron trapping sites can affect both the dynamics and thermodynamics of the interaction of hydrogen with a-HfO2 and the electrical behavior of amorphous hafnia films in CMOS devices.

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