Hafnium(IV) oxide Information & Hafnium(IV) oxide Links at HealthHaven.com

Hafnium(IV) oxide
IUPAC name	Hafnium(IV) oxide
Other names	Hafnium dioxide; Hafnia
Identifiers
CAS number	12055-23-1
Properties
Molecular formula	HfO2
Molar mass	210.49 g/mol
Appearance	off-white powder
Density	9.68 g/cm3, solid
Melting point	2758 °C
Boiling point	5400 °C
Solubility in water	insoluble
Hazards
EU Index	Not listed
Flash point	Non-flammable
Related compounds
Other cations	Titanium(IV) oxide; Zirconium(IV) oxide
Related compounds	Hafnium nitride
	(what is this?) (verify); Except where noted otherwise, data are given for materials in their standard state (at 25 °C, 100 kPa)
	Infobox references

Hafnium(IV) oxide is the inorganic compound with the formula Hf O₂. Also known as hafnia, this colourless solid is one of the most common and stable compounds of hafnium. It is an electrical insulator with a band gap of approximately 6 eV. Hafnium dioxide is an intermediate in some processes that give hafnium metal.

Hafnium(IV) oxide is quite inert. It reacts with strong acids such as concentrated sulfuric acid and with strong bases. It dissolves slowly in hydrofluoric acid to give fluorohafnate anions. At elevated temperatures, it reacts with chlorine in the presence of graphite or carbon tetrachloride to give hafnium tetrachloride.

[edit] Applications

Hafnia is used in optical coatings, and as a high-k dielectric in DRAM capacitors. Hafnium-based oxides are currently leading candidates to replace silicon oxide as a gate insulator in field effect transistors.

The compound appears to have been chosen by both IBM and Intel as a substrate for future integrated circuits, where it may help in the continuing effort to increase logic density and clock speeds, or to lower power consumption, in computer processors.^[1]

Because of its very high melting point, hafnia is also used as a refractory material in the insulation of such devices as thermocouples, where it can operate at temperatures up to 2500 °C.^[2]

Hafnium Oxide is applied to carbon nanotube-based Non-Volatile RAM (NVRAM), where it replaces silicon dioxide as the insulating layer. This switch in material decreased the amount of time to access the memory from several milliseconds to just around 100 nanoseconds thereby potentially increasing the reading and writing to NVRAM by a factor of 100,000.^[3]

[edit] References

^ "Intel Says Chips Will Run Faster, Using Less Power", New York Times, 2007-01-27
^ Very High Temperature Exotic Thermocouple Probes product data, Omega Engineering, Inc., retrieved 2008-12-03
^ Nanotube memory flashes past silicon NewScientist, Article written 05 February 2009 by David Robson

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[0] "Intel Says Chips Will Run Faster, Using Less Power", New York Times, 2007-01-27

[1] Very High Temperature Exotic Thermocouple Probes product data, Omega Engineering, Inc., retrieved 2008-12-03

[2] Nanotube memory flashes past silicon NewScientist, Article written 05 February 2009 by David Robson

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