Structure and dielectric properties of amorphous high-κ oxides: HfO 2, ZrO 2, and their alloys

Abstract

High-κ metal oxides are a class of materials playing an increasingly important role in modern device physics and technology. Here we report theoretical investigations of the properties of structural and lattice dielectric constants of bulk amorphous metal oxides by a combined approach of classical molecular dynamics (MD), for structure evolution, and quantum mechanical first-principles density function theory (DFT), for electronic structure analysis. Using classical MD based on the Born-Mayer-Buckingham potential function within a melt and quench scheme, amorphous structures of high-κ metal oxides Hf 1-xZr xO 2 with different values of the concentration x are generated. The coordination numbers and the radial distribution functions of the structures are in good agreement with the corresponding experimental data. We then calculate the lattice dielectric constants of the materials from quantum mechanical first principles, and the values averaged over an ensemble of samples agree well with the available experimental data and are very close to the dielectric constants of their cubic form. © 2012 American Physical Society.