Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2004. / Supervisor: Jack C. Lee. Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Cette thèse de doctorat traite du comportement géochimique de Zr, Hf et Terres Rares dans des environnements aqueux extrêmes. Les études ont été effectuées dans les eaux hyper-salines long de la faille de la Mer Morte (Israël), les eaux hyper-acides dans le système volcanique hydrothermal du Nevado del Ruiz (Colombie) et les eaux riches en CO2 du système volcanique hydrothermal de l'île de Pantelleria, en comprenant le lac alcalin “Specchio di Venere”. Haute appauvrissement en Terres Rares légères a été trouvé dans les eaux acides dominées par le sulfate où on a reconnu la formation d’alunite et jarosite. Certaines eaux long de la faille de la Mer Morte montrent des enrichissements en Terres Rares intermédiaires, causés par la dissolution des minéraux évaporitiques. Les grandes variations redox et de pH observées dans ces systèmes hydrothermaux sont la cause des anomalies de Eu et Ce. Les eaux sulfates acides (1 < pH < 3.6) se caractérisent par des relations de Zr/Hf sous-condritiques et des relations condritiques de Y/Ho. Les rapports de Zr/Hf augment à l'augmentation du rapport Cl/SO4 en suggérant un comportement différent de Zr et Hf. Contrairement aux eaux acides, les relations de Y/Ho et Zr/Hf dans les eaux proches de la neutralité avec valeurs de Eh positives augmentent vers des valeurs super-condritiques, en raison de l'élimination préférentielle par les oxyhydroxydes de fer, de l'Hf et Ho que de Zr et Y. Le distribution des Terres Rares, avec les rapports de Y/Ho et Zr/Hf du “Specchio di Venere” montrent l’interaction entre les particules atmosphériques qui viennent du désert du Sahara et le lac “Specchio di Venere”, démontrent qu’ils sont de traceurs géochimiques. / This thesis concerns the geochemistry of Zr, Hf and REE (Rare Earth Elements) in extreme water environments. The investigations were carried out in hypersaline waters covering a wide range of Eh values along Dead Sea Fault (Israel), in hyperacid waters circulating in Nevado del Ruiz volcano-hydrothermal system (Colombia) and in CO2-rich waters in Pantelleria volcano-hydrothermal system (Italy), including the alkaline lake “Specchio di Venere” within a calderic depression. The acidic sulphates waters characterized by the precipitation of alunite and jarosite show a strong LREE depletion. The REE in waters along Dead Sea Fault show MREE enrichments in waters with relative high Ca and SO4 concentrations due to the water interaction with MREE-enriched salt minerals. In the natural waters, changing of pH and Eh induce variations of Ce and Eu anomalies, due to the different behaviour of these elements with respect to the neighbours REE. In sulphate acidic waters, Zr/Hf ratios are very low down to 4.7, while quite constant Y/Ho ratio (close to the local rock value) indicates the lack of decoupling. Zr/Hf ratio increases as Cl/SO4 ratio increases. On the contrary, Zr/Hf and Y/Ho ratios in near-neutral pH waters with positive Eh values change from near-chondritic to super-chondritic. The precipitation of Fe-oxyhydroxides removes preferentially Hf and Ho with respect to Zr and Y. The interaction of atmospheric fallout from the nearby Sahara Desert with the water of the lake “Specchio di Venere” was recognized by the Zr, Hf and REE distribution. Zr, Hf and REE show the capability to trace the interaction process between open water bodies and atmospheric fallout.

Hafnium and Zirconium based gate dielectrics are considered potential candidates to replace SiO2 or SiON as the gate dielectric in CMOS processing. Furthermore, the addition of nitrogen into this pseudo-binary alloy has been shown to improve their thermal stability, electrical properties, and reduce dopant penetration. Because CMOS processing requires high temperature anneals (up to 1050 °C), it is important to understand the diffusion properties of any metal associated with the gate dielectric in silicon at these temperatures. In addition, dopant penetration from the doped polysilicon gate into the Si channel at these temperatures must also be studied. Impurity outdiffusion (Hf, Zr) from the dielectric, or dopant (B, As, P) penetration through the dielectric into the channel region would likely result in deleterious effects upon the carrier mobility. In this dissertation extensive thermal stability studies of alternate gate dielectric candidates ZrSixOy and HfSixOy are presented. Dopant penetration studies from doped-polysilicon through HfSixOy and HfSixOyNz are also presented. Rutherford backscattering spectroscopy (RBS), heavy ion RBS (HI-RBS), x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), high resolution transmission electron microscopy (HR-TEM), and time of flight and dynamic secondary ion mass spectroscopy (ToF-SIMS, D-SIMS) methods were used to characterize these materials. The dopant diffusivity is calculated by modeling of the dopant profiles in the Si substrate. In this disseration is reported that Hf silicate films are more stable than Zr silicate films, from the metal interdiffusion point of view. On the other hand, dopant (B, As, and P) penetration is observed for HfSixOy films. However, the addition of nitrogen to the Hf - Si - O systems improves the dopant penetration properties of the resulting HfSixOyNz films.

The long-term goal of this research project is the development of solution-based inorganic dielectric and semiconductor materials for inkjet printed electronics. The main focus of this thesis involves testing of the materials and devices under development. A new solution-based inorganic dielectric material (HfOSO₄), given the name hafsox, is developed and shows excellent dielectric properties. Hafsox with the addition of lanthanum, to improve film dehydration, has successfully been demonstrated as a gate dielectric. Metal-insulator-metal (MIM) capacitance testing of hafsox with lanthanum, has resulted in a low loss tangent of 0.30% at 1 kHz, a relative permittivity of 11.47 at 1 kHz, a breakdown voltage of 6.30 MV cm⁻¹, and a leakage current density of 4.38 nA cm⁻² at 1 MV cm⁻¹. Progress has also been achieved in the development of solution-based semiconductor materials. To date the most successful of these materials is zinc indium oxide (ZIO), which has been demonstrated as a thin-film-transistor (TFT) channel material. This ZIO TFT is a depletion-mode device with a turn-on-voltage of V[subscript on]~ -19 V, a threshold voltage of V[subscript T] ~-16 V, and a drain current on-to-off ratio of ~10³. Mobilities extracted from this ZIO TFT include an incremental mobility of μ[subscript inc] ~0.05 cm² V⁻' sec⁻', an effective mobility of μ[subscript eff] ~0.02 cm² V⁻' sec⁻', and an average mobility of μ[subscript avg] ~0.02 cm² V⁻' sec⁻' at V[subscript GS]=20 V. The development of metal-semiconductor field-effect transistors (MESFET) TFTs is also investigated as a means of eliminating the need for a dielectric material in order to reduce the complexity of fabricating circuits. MESFETs are attempted with semiconductor materials such as CdS that is deposited by chemical bath deposition (CBD) and SnO₂ that is deposited by RF magnetron sputtering, but with little success. The most successful MESFET-like device fabricated, employing SnO₂ as the channel material, is a strong depletion-mode device with a small amount of gate voltage modulation. / Graduation date: 2006

As the minimum feature size in complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) devices shrinks, the leakage current through the gate insulator (silicon oxide) will increase sufficiently to impair device operation. A high dielectric constant (k) insulator is needed as a replacement for silicon oxide in order to reduce this leakage. Hafnium-based materials are among the more promising candidates for the gate insulator, however, it is hampered by material quality and thus has been slow to be introduced into high volume integrated circuit production. Hafnium oxynitride films are deposited by Metalorganic Chemical Vapor Deposition (MOCVD) and downstream microwave Plasma Enhanced Chemical Vapor Deposition (PECVD) employing different oxidants including O2, N2O, O2 plasma, N2O plasma, N2O/N2 plasma, and O2/He plasma in the current research. The effects of oxidants on deposition kinetics, morphology, composition, bonding structure, electrical properties and thermal stability of the resultant films each are investigated. The possible chemical/physical causes of these observations are developed and some mechanisms are proposed to explain the experimental results. Oxygen radicals, which are known of present in oxidizing environments are determined to play an essential role in defining both structures and the resultant electronic properties of deposited hafnium oxynitride films. This systematic investigation of oxidant effects on CVD grown hafnium oxide/oxynitride layers, in the absence of post-deposition annealing, provides new understanding to this area with potential importance to the integrated circuit industry.

A series of tetravalent zirconium and hafnium complexes were supported by diarylamido-phosphino [PNP]- (bis(o-diisopropylphosphinophenyl)amide) ligand. The reaction of MCl4(THF)2 (M = Zr, Hf) with [PNP]Li in toluene at room temperature generates [PNP]MCl3 as solid in 60 % yield. Polyalkyl complexes which are lack of £]-hydrogen have been achieved in synthesis of [PNP]MR3 (R = Me, CH2SiMe3) or [PNP]M(CH2SiMe3)2(E) (E = Cl, Me) since we could control the desired product from steric effect. An X-ray diffraction study of [PNP]ZrCl3 showed it to be a chloride-bridged binuclear species {[PNP]MCl2(£g-Cl)}2 in which both metal atoms are 7-coordinate whereas that of [PNP]MCl3(THF) revealed a mononuclear, 7-coordinate core structure. The phosphine fluxional exchange were found in those complexes, monitoring variable temperature 31P NMR, their fluxionality were calculated by line shape analysis. By heating [PNP]M(CH2SiMe3)2(Cl) in solution, we can afford new alkylidene complexes [PNP]M(Cl)(=CHSiMe3) via intramolecular £\-abstraction. Through Eyring plot analysis, the activation energy of [PNP]Zr(CH2SiMe3)2(Cl) £\-abstraction is ∆H‡ = 16.49(19) kcal/mol and ∆S‡ = −25.64(19) cal/mol•K; [PNP]Hf(CH2SiMe3)2(Cl) £\-abstraction is ∆H‡ = 18.70(36) kcal/mol and ∆S‡ = −23.12(36) cal/mol•K. The mixture [PNP]Hf(=CHSiMe3)(Cl) could not isolate with any purification, but [PNP]Hf(=CHSiMe3)(CH2SiMe3) obtained through directly alkylation. Here we also identified multiple alkylidene derivatives of [PNP]M(=CHSiMe3)(X) (X = Cl, CH2SiMe3). The X-ray structured and solution NMR data of those alkylidene complexes can be ascribed to evidence of £\-agostic interaction with metal center. A novel zwitterionic complex [PNP]Zr(£g2-CHSiMe3)2(AlMe2) was characterized by X-ray and been received a bisalkylidene complex which was synthesized through addition Lewies acid (AlMe3) into [PNP]Zr(=CHSiMe3)(CH2SiMe3). Group 4 alkylidene was acting as catalyst to metathesize ethylene or norbornene. The complexes [PNP]M(=CHSiMe3)(Cl) have highly streotic selectivity catalyst for ring-opening metathesis polymerization (ROMP) of norbornene. It is important to emphasize the great significance of the catalyst discoveries and improvements for both academic research and industry.

Thesis (M. Phil.)--Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available in electronic version. Access restricted to campus users.

The amide unit constitutes the backbone of proteins, and it is present in a large number of pharmaceutically active molecules, polymeric materials such as nylon and Kevlar, as well as in food additives like aspartame. Amides are produced in enormous amounts every year, thus, environmentally friendly and selective methods for their formation are of great importance. This thesis deals with the direct formation of amides from non-activated carboxylic acids and amines with the aid of group (IV) metal complexes. Water is the only by-product of this environmentally benign process. This fact stands in contrast to the most common methods for amide formation to date, which involve the use of waste-intensive, expensive and often toxic coupling reagents. The catalytic protocols presented herein use titanium, zirconium and hafnium complexes under mild reaction conditions to produce amides in good to excellent yields. Furthermore, carbamates are demonstrated to be suitable sources of gaseous amines for the formation of primary and tertiary amides under catalytic conditions. In addition, preliminary results from on-going mechanistic investigations of the zirconium- and hafnium-catalyzed processes are presented. / Amidbindningen är en kemisk enhet som utgör ryggraden i proteiner, och som även återfinns i en stor mängd läkemedelsmolekyler, polymera material som nylon och Kevlar, samt i tillsatser i livsmedelsindustrin, exempelvis aspartam. Amider produceras i enorma mängder varje år, och det är av stor vikt att utveckla miljövänliga och selektiva metoder för deras framställning. Denna avhandling behandlar direkt amidering av icke-aktiverade karboxylsyror och aminer med hjälp av katalytiska mängder metallkomplex, baserade på titan, zirkonium och hafnium. Den enda biprodukten från denna amideringsreaktion är vatten. Jämfört med de metoder som generellt används idag för amidsyntes, så är de presenterade metoderna avsevärt mer miljövänliga med avseende på toxicitet hos reagensen såväl som på mängden avfall som genereras. Dessutom redovisas här en katalytisk metod för syntes av primära och tertiära amider genom att använda olika karbamat som källa till gasformiga aminer, vilka annars kan vara praktiskt svåra att arbeta med. Preliminära resultat från en pågående mekanistisk studie av de zirkonium- och hafnium-katalyserade processerna är också inkluderade. / <p>At the time of the doctoral defense, the following paper was unpublished and had a status as follows: Paper 2: Accepted.</p>

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