Holmium hafnate: An emerging electronic device material

We report structural, optical, charge transport, and temperature properties as well as the frequency dependence of the dielectric constant of Ho₂Hf₂O₇ (HHO) which make this material desirable as an alternative high-k dielectric for future silicon technology devices. A high dielectric constant of ∼20 and very low dielectric loss of ∼0.1% are temperature and voltage independent at 100 kHz near ambient conditions. The Pt/HHO/Pt capacitor exhibits exceptionally low Schottky emission-based leakage currents. In combination with the large observed bandgap E_g of 5.6 eV, determined by diffuse reflectance spectroscopy, our results reveal fundamental physics and materials science of the HHO metal oxide and its potential application as a high-k dielectric for the next generation of complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor devices