Vapor Deposition of Metal Oxides and Silicates: Possible Gate Insulators for Future Microelectronics

New chemical reactions are introduced for the atomic layer deposition of many metal oxide and metal silicate films from metal alkylamide precursors. The results for hafnium and lanthanum oxides and silicates overturn a long-held assumption that bulky reactants necessarily lead to low deposition rates. There is an urgent need for a replacement for silicon dioxide gate electrodes in microelectronics. The new deposition methods furnish a very promising approach to making materials suitable for this important application.