Combinatorial Discovery and Optimization of Amorphous HfO2-Nb2O5 Mixture with Improved Transparency

Combinatorial high vacuum chemical vapor deposition (HV-CVD) of mixed HfO2-Nb2O5 thin films has been demonstrated to yield amorphous layers at substrate temperatures where individually deposited pure HfO2 and Nb2O5 films are polycrystalline. Spectroscopic ellipsometry of the films shows that adding HfO2 to Nb2O5 improves the transparency of the films while still maintaining a high refractive index. Atomic force microscopy measurements show that the root-mean-square surface roughness of the films is about 1.2 nm. (C) 2010 The Electrochemical Society. [DOI: 10.1149/1.3407618] All rights reserved.