Incorporation of Zn ions on high dielectric HfO2 thin films by spray pyrolysis and fabrication of Al/Zn@HfO2/n-Si Schottky barrier diodes

[Display omitted] •A nanostructured Zn@HfO2 thin films were through the JNSP technique.•The mesoporous with irregular balls intact nanorods-like structured morphology was observed by FESEM images.•The band gap values are receded continuously after doping.•We have fabricated Al/Zn@HfO2/n-Si diode for various Zn concentration.•A minimum ideality factor was obtained for 15 wt% of MIS diode. In this work, we have prepared the nanorods are intact with mesoporous of Zn@HfO2 thin films through the JNSP technique with different concentrations of Zn (5,10,15 Wt%) to improve the MIS Schottky diode Al/Zn-HfO2/n-Si performance. The XRD was used to determine the structural parameters such as the phase and grain size for both pure HfO2 and Zn@HfO2 composite films. The mesoporous with irregular balls and nano rod-like morphology have been observed through FESEM images. The absorption coefficients and bandgap energy were calculated from the UV–vis spectrum. The EDAX analysis has confirmed that the Zn, Hf and O percentages in both films. The XPS spectrum has confirmed Zn's presence and binding natural with a spin-orbit splitting on the films’ surface. By the thermionic emission theory, I-V curves of forward and reverse bias are used to determine the barrier height, ideality factor and saturation currents. All the Al/Zn@HfO2/n-Si diode parameters are strongly improved after the incorporation of Zn ions.