Effect of O2 Partial Pressure on Valence Band Maxima of HfO2 Thin Film

The effect of the oxygen (O2) partial pressure on the valence band maxima (VBM) of pulsed laser deposited HfO2/Si(100) thin films were investigated by photoelectron spectroscopic (PES) technique. Grazing incidence X-ray diffraction (GIXRD) measurements suggest that the deposited films were in polycrystalline monoclinic phase. The VBM was determined using PES measurements. It was observed that the VBM shifted towards the higher binding energy from 2.79 to 3.24 eV in the film deposited in O2 environment as compared to that deposited without O2 environment. The O 1s core level spectra showed that oxygen vacancy reduces as O2 was introduced during deposition of film.