Electronic Materials and Magnetic Resonance

Staff member: Dr. R.C. Barklie, rbarklie@tcd.ie

Dr Barklie specialises in the application of magnetic resonance techniques especially Electron Paramagnetic Resonance and Ferromagnetic Resonance. Currently there are two strands to the research work. The first concerns the application of Electron Paramagnetic Resonance to the characterisation of defects within oxide materials that may be used as high k gate dielectrics within the new generation of MOSFETs. The second strand involves the characterisation of ferromagnetic thin films using the technique of Ferromagnetic Resonance. Further details of this research are given below.

Current research projects:

1. Characterisation of defects within high k dielectrics.

   The further scaling down in the size of electronic circuits used in microprocessors will shortly require the replacement of SiO₂ as the gate dielectric in silicon MOSFETs; it will need to be replaced with a material with a higher dielectric constant, k, such as HfO₂ or ZrO₂. Since atomic defects in such materials or at their interface with silicon can degrade the device performance it is important to characterise such defects with a view to reducing their population and this is the aim of this project.

2. Magnetic properties of ferromagnetic thin films.

   When the scaling limit of currently produced semiconductor microprocessors has been reached they may be replaced by devices which make use of the spin of the electron and such devices will contain thin ferromagnetic layers. It is therefore of interest to study the properties of such thin layers. In this project the technique of Ferromagnetic Resonance is used to determine some of the magnetic properties of such layers.

Some representative publications:

• Electron paramagnetic resonance evaluation of defects at the (100) Si/Al₂O₃ interface, B.J.Jones and R.C.Barklie, Journal of Physics D: Applied Physics, 38 (2005) 1178.
• EPR study of defects produced by MeV Ag ion implantation into silicon, C.O`Raifeartaigh, R.C. Barklie, J. K. N. Lindner, Nuclear Instruments and Methods In Physics Research B, 217 (2004) 442.
• Characterisation of defects in amorphous carbon by electron paramagnetic resonance , R.C. Barklie, Diamond and Related Materials, 12 (2003) 1427.