Intrinsic doping of hematite through the inclusion of oxygen vacancies (V _O ) is being increasingly explored as a simple, low temperature route to preparing active water splitting α-Fe ₂ O _3−x photoelectrodes.

A range of high-permittivity (κ) dielectric oxides are currently being investigated as alternatives to SiO₂ as the dielectric insulating layer in sub-0.1 μm CMOS technology. Metalorganic chemical vapour deposition (MOCVD) and atomic layer deposition (ALD) are promising techniques for the deposition of these high-κ dielectric oxides. Some recent developments in precursors for the MOCVD and ALD of ZrO₂, HfO₂, Zr- and Hf-silicate and the rare earth oxides M₂O₃ (M = Pr, La, Gd, Nd) are discussed.

The role of nitrogen doping on the stability and memory window of resistive state switching in N-doped Ta₂O₅ deposited by atomic layer deposition is elucidated. Nitrogen incorporation increases the stability of resistive memory states which is attributed to neutralization of electronic defect levels associated with oxygen vacancies. The density functional simulations with the screened exchange hybrid functional approximation show that the incorporation of nitrogen dopant atoms in the oxide network removes the O vacancy midgap defect states, thus nullifying excess defects and eliminating alternative conductive paths. By effectively reducing the density of vacancy-induced defect states through N doping, 3-bit multilevel cell switching is demonstrated, consisting of eight distinctive resistive memory states achieved by either controlling the set current compliance or the maximum voltage during reset. Nitrogen doping has a threefold effect: widening the switching memory window to accommodate the more intermediate states, improving the stability of states, and providing a gradual reset for multi-level cell switching during reset. The N-doped Ta₂O₅ devices have relatively small set and reset voltages (< 1 V) with reduced variability due to doping.

The effect of cerium doping on the dielectric properties of hafnium dioxide is reported. Thin films of cerium-doped hafnium oxide ${\text{Ce}}_x–{\text{Hf}}_{1-x}{\text{O}}_2$ $\left(x=0.10,0.17,0.34\right)$ have been grown by liquid injection atomic layer deposition. After annealing at $900°\text{C}$ , all films were transformed from an amorphous state into a stabilized cubic or tetragonal phase. As-deposited films of ${\text{Ce}}_{0.1}–{\text{Hf}}_{0.9}{\text{O}}_2$ showed low hysteresis voltages and negligible flat band voltage shifts. After annealing to form the crystalline cubic or tetragonal phase, the relative permittivity $\left(\kappa \right)$ increased from 25 to 32 at 100 kHz with leakage current densities at $\pm 1\text{MV}{\text{cm}}^{-1}$ of $\sim 1.58\times {10}^{-5}\text{A}{\text{cm}}^{-2}$ .