Electronic Structure and Optical Quality of Nanocrystalline Y₂O₃ Film Surfaces and Interfaces on Silicon

Abstract

Nanocrystalline yttrium oxide (Y 2 O 3 ) thin films were made by sputter deposition onto silicon (100) substrates keeping the deposition temperature fixed at 300 °C. The surface/interface chemistry, Y−O bonding, and optical constants of the Y 2 O 3 film surface and Y 2 O 3 −Si interface were evaluated by the combined use of X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), depth-profiling, and spectroscopic ellipsometry (SE). XPS analyses indicate the binding energies (BEs) of the Y 3d doublet; i.e., the Y 3p 5/2 and Y 3d 3/2 peaks are located at 117.0 and 119.1 eV, respectively, characterizing yttrium in its highest chemical oxidation state (Y 3+ ) in the grown films. The optical model is constructed based on the XPS depth profiles, which indicate that the Y 2 O 3 //Si heterostructure can be represented with Y 2 O 3 filmY x Si y O z interfacial compoundSi substrate. Such a model accounts for the experimentally determined ellipsometry functions and accurately produces the dispersive index of refraction (n(λ)) of Y 2 O 3 and Y x Si y O z . The n(λ) of Y 2 O 3 and Y x Si y O z follows Cauchy's dispersion relation, while the Y x Si y O z formation accounts for degradation of optical quality.

X-ray induced color change on dense yttria samples obtained by spark plasma sintering

“…Y 3d5/2 and Y 3d3/2, occurs at binding energy of 156.9 and 159.2 eV, whereas the O 1s line occurred at 529.5 eV. These values exhibit a good agreement with literature ones [35,38,39].…”

De‐densification mechanisms of yttria‐doped cerium oxide during sintering in a reducing atmosphere

“…The Y3d region showed well‐resolved spin‐orbit components whose binding energies are usually reported at 156.4 and 158.4 eV . The Y3d spectra of CeYO 2‐x Ref/50 and CeYO 2‐x + C/50 are shown as a function of the depth of etching in Figure .…”

Crystal growth of Bi2Te3 and noble cleaved (0001) surface properties

“…For the peak fitting procedure, a mixture of Lorenzian and Gaussian functions were used together with the Shirley background subtraction method. The details of the sample preparation and measurements can be found elsewhere [19,26,61]. To determine the chemical composition of the Bi 2 Te 3 surface, the atomic sensitivity factors (ASF) were initially obtained using pure polycrystalline Bi and Te samples.…”