Energy band profile of ultrathin Hf silicate dielectrics, grown by atomic layer deposition, was studied by using x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and reflection electron energy loss spectroscopy. The band gap energy only slightly increases from 5.52eV for (HfO2)0.75(SiO2)0.25 to 6.10eV for (HfO2)0.25(SiO2)0.75, which is much smaller than 8.90eV for SiO2. For ultrathin Hf silicate dielectrics, the band gap is mainly determined by the Hf 5d conduction band state and the O 2p valence band state. The corresponding conduction band offsets are in the vicinity of 1eV, which satisfies the minimum requirement for the carrier barrier heights.
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Jin et al. (2006) studied this question.