Fig. 1

Spectrum of XPS measured over a wide range of elements binding energy (a), only O, Hf and C were detected. The distribution of elements: Hf, O and C as a function of Ar⁺ spattering time (b), high resolution O 1 s line decomposed into two components: bonded with Hf (blue line) and atmospheric contamination (red line) (c), hafnium 4f 7/2 (red line) and 4f 5/2 (blue line) spin –orbit doublet before sputtering (d) and after sputtering (e), the second spin–orbit doublet should be added to account for Hf bonded with less than 7 oxygen atoms. The AFM images of obtained HfO₂ thin layer: top view of scan area equal to 4 μm² (f) and three-dimensional view of scan area of 100 μm²(g)