In this study, we demonstrated experimentally and theoretically that oxygen vacancies are responsible for the charge transport in HfO$_2$. Basing on the model of phonon-assisted tunneling between traps, and assuming that the electron traps are oxygen vacancies, good quantitative agreement between the experimental and theoretical data of current-voltage characteristics were achieved. The thermal trap energy of 1.25 eV in HfO$_2$ was determined based on the charge transport experiments.
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