HfS thin films deposited at room temperature by an emerging technique, solution atomic layer deposition.

As a member of the two-dimensional metal dichalcogenide family, HfS has emerged as a promising material for various optoelectronic applications. Atomic layer deposition is widely used in microelectronics manufacturing with unique properties in terms of accurate thickness control and high conformality. In this work, a simple and versatile method based on the atomic layer deposition principles is presented to generate hafnium disulfide from the solution phase ('solution ALD' or sALD). For ease of comparison with the traditional gaseous atomic layer deposition (gALD) method, the same precursors are used, namely tetrakis-(dimethylamido) hafnium(IV) and HS. The deposit is characterized on several different oxide substrates by spectroscopic ellipsometry, scanning electron microscopy, and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. In the saturated regime, the growth rate depends on the substrate nature and is between 0.4 and 0.6 Å per sALD cycle. This growth rate determined at room temperature is lower than with the gALD process reported at 100 °C recently. At those low deposition temperatures, the films remain in an amorphous state. This success in sALD expands the range of material classes available by the new method, adding transition metal dichalcogenides to the list containing oxides, cubic sulfides, hydrides, and organics so far. It promises to overcome the precursor constraints associated with the traditional gALD method, in particular the volatility requirement.