Zirconium nitride: A viable candidate for photonics and plasmonics?

Abstract Recently, transition metal nitrides received attention as potential alternative materials for plasmonics due to their high electron conductivity and mobility, high melting point, chemical and thermal stability, and due to the compatibility of their growth with complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor technology. Among them, ZrN is maybe the most promising due to the lower dielectric losses than TiN. Despite of this promise the optical and plasmonic properties of ZrN received less attention than those of TiN. In this work, an in-depth review of the structure, thermodynamics, growth, and optical properties of ZrN films and nanoparticles, as well as of ZrN-based ternary compounds is presented. Ellipsometry and Raman spectra of the entire literature are critically compared and global trends and predictions of their plasmonic performance are considered.