tantalum oxide is a white crystalline compound inert to most chemicals except hydrofluoric acid. It is readily milled to particle size requirements for a variety of applications including reactive sputter deposition, and ceramic applications. It is typically referred to as Ta2O5.
The one-pot synthesis method is used to synthesize amorphous tantalum or niobium oxides from a solution of fluorotantalic or oxyfluoroniobic acid, with or without other additives. The resulting compounds are subsequently precipitated, filtered and calcined to produce a high-purity amorphous tantalum or amorphous niobium oxide powder. The amorphous form of the compound has excellent corrosion resistance and can be ionically deposited onto titanium substrates to produce an ion irradiation resistant film.
The amorphous form of the compound also has good mechanical strength and can be used as an electrical contact material. This property has been utilized in a wide variety of telecommunication and electronic devices such as capacitors and semiconductor components, such as RRAM (resistive random-access memory) capacitors.
The crystalline form of the compound has poor dimensional stability and can be subjected to rapid thermal degradation, which limits its use in high-temperature applications such as RRAM capacitors. However, the amorphous form of the compound has demonstrated a high resistance to thermal cycling, and it can be used in RRAM capacitors as a replacement for NiO.