Hafnium(IV) oxide
Hafnium dioxide is the inorganic compound with the formula HfO2. Also known as hafnia, this colourless solid is one of the most common and stable compounds of hafnium. It is an electrical insulator with a band gap of approximately 6 eV. Hafnium dioxide is an intermediate in some processes that give hafnium metal.
Hafnium(IV) oxide is quite inert. It reacts with strong acids such as concentrated sulfuric acid and with strong bases. It dissolves slowly in hydrofluoric acid to give fluorohafnate anions. At elevated temperatures, it reacts with chlorine in the presence of graphite or carbon tetrachloride to give hafnium tetrachloride.
Applications
It is used in optical coatings, and as a high-k dielectric in DRAM capacitors. Hafnium based oxides are currently leading candidates to replace silicon oxide as a gate insulator in field effect transistors.It appears to have planned use by both IBM and Intel to continue scaling down semiconductor features to continue Moore's Law, to continue to increase logic density in computer processors, increase clock speeds, or lower power consumption. See article:
- http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/27/technology/27chip.html
External links
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.
Last updated on Thursday August 21, 2008 at 08:41:22 PDT (GMT -0700)
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