I have deposited zirconium film using spin coating. When I take IV characteristic using mercury probe, I'm getting leakage current around E-8 however when I deposit any metal using sputtering and then measure the leakage current, it shows E-3?
What could be possible reasons?
I have deposited molycrome using DC sputtering and Al using thermal evaporation , however both are showing E-3.
I think what you coated may be ZrO2 not Zr metal! Stoichiometric ZrO2 is an insulator with a very large band gap, and ZrO2-x (with significant oxygen vacancies) is a semiconductor. Zr oxidizes very easily.
Thank you.
And yes, it's zro2 which I have coated. Still there is a big difference in leakage current measured by mercury probe and after metal coating.
Basically we are making MIM structure with Si/zro2/Al and we are getting very high leakage so what could be the possible reason?
Thickness of zro2 is 180 nm and for Al it is 100 nm
One possible reason could be presence of fine cracks in the ZrO2. Mercury will not wet and penetrate the cracks, whereas thermal evaporated or sputtered coating penetrates the defects. Another possible explanation, especially for Al coating, is that doping of aluminum (Al3+) substituting Zr4+, and increasing the defect concentration which resulted in high leakage current. Ti coating may not increase the conductivity because of isovalency with Zr?
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